"Books let us into their souls and lay open to us the secrets of our own." ~William Hazlitt

If you had asked me a year ago what I like to read or if I'm reading anything currently, I would of struggled to answer. To be honest, I hate reading... or atleast I did.
Growing up, I struggled with reading comprehension and read at very slow pace. Often times, finding myself drifting in and out of books to where I would read the words, but my mind was multi-tasking on atleast ten other things and I wouldn't retain any of it.
I came to the conclusion it was a waste of my time.

My boyfriend is an avid reader. He firmly believes in feeding his brain with as much information he can get his hands on! ("Good for him" I use to think, as I'd roll my eyes...) He would often ask me why I hated  reading so much and that I should want to learn more - by other means than internet articles & television (apparently those don't count, lol).

I slowly began to take the hint and spark my own curiosity... "Hmm, maybe I can learn a thing or two from these things called 'books'. Maybe I should stop arguing about why I hate it and making excuses!" And so I did.

Well, to start, I took on a book about Accounting. *snooze* lol, but I wanted to engross my brain with some of the fundamentals to help better my understanding at work.

I would say the real reading 'bug' didn't begin until we went to Las Vegas back at the end of January. I, for some reason, packed a book my sister had given to me titled "Irish Girls About Town". It was a compilation of short stories, all written by well known Irish (Women) Authors. It also just so happened, our flights home were cancelled for three days and when we finally did get a flight out, it involved long layovers. So after sitting in an airport, crabby, tired, ready to go home... my boyfriend and I were sick of looking at each other! (LOL, I can laugh about that NOW.) I reached for my book, curled up in my chair, and was completely enthralled.

I read that sucker during the layover, the entire flight, and even when we got home! When I put it down, I continually found myself wanting to pick it back up again. Thus starting my new found love affair with a good book! I have my boyfriend and sister to thank, of course!

That being said, after I quickly finished "Irish Girls About Town" I was depressed. Not because of the book itself, but because it was over! What would I read now!? Alvin, my boyfriend, suggest picking one of the authors from the book that I enjoyed and starting there with some of their other works. (He's so smart! Love him.) SO I did just that.

I had him reserve for me at our local library "Tara Road" by Maeve Binchy (come to find out later on that it was once featured on Oprah's book list). It wasn't until I got it home I realized he had reserved me the Large Print copy, haha, so it was a bit intimidating see how thick the book was! It worked out just fine, however. :)

Oh how this book made me laugh, cry, and reflect so much on my own life... and after a few weeks, I had another great book, DONE! Now what?
I determined that I love Maeve Binchy and so now I'm onto "Circle of Friends" - some of you may remember the movie with Minnie Driver & Chris O'Donnell from the mid-90's. I've heard the book is better and the movie totally changed the ending, as to be expected when books are adapted to movies. So I'm so excited to get further into this one! I've only just read one chapter so far.

If any of you would like me to post a synopsis of any of the above mentioned books, I'd be more than happy to!