Read what you love; love what you read!

I’m an avid reader.  When I have the time I devour books and no matter how many I read, there’s always a hundred more waiting on my Kindle.  You’d think I’d stop there but nope…..I can’t resist a good book and my Twitter and Facebook feeds are constantly showing them to me, tempting me with their covers and blurbs full of promises.  So, I continue to buy more books at a rate faster than they can possibly be read. I just love them.

People will often ask me what sort of books I like to read and I find it really difficult to answer. Why? Because I read anything that takes my interest or is recommended by a friend.  I read for pleasure; not to make me look good, not for social status and not for a trend.  I read because I want to be immersed in another time, place or person’s life for a short while.  I read because it relaxes me. I read because it’s my favourite thing to do – for myself.

Often, I speak about books with friends, family and on social media and I’m surprised to find how much snobbery there is around book genres out there.

Firstly, am I the only one who finds the term chick-lit derrogatory.  There’s something a little sexist about the assumption it’s a women’s genre and also the use of the term ‘chick’ in itself is a little off.  Surely the genre of these books is romance or contemporary, not ‘trashy’ novel! I love this genre. I find it is pure indulgence in someone else’s story for a while, allowing me to temporarily forget the hundreds of things I need to do.  Romance books often provide light reading which is welcome and much needed when I have a lot going on and only short perionds to read in.  And most of all, this genre gives a little bit of hope that romance is out there.

When I was younger I read a lot of horror.  I used to find humour in the surprised looks of people when I said I like horror.  Horror indulges my dark side.  It doesn’t scare me but the creativity of the creatures and plotlines intrigue me and always make me wonder how on earth people dreamed them up.

Thrillers, crime and suspense have always been favourites of mine.  In more recent years I’ve thoroughly enjoyed watching the explosion of femal writings succeefully burst onto the scene and the different perspectives they create in their work.  I love the reality of the situations in these books, things you can imagine happening and certainly do happen.  This scares me!  This gives me food for thought and occasionally a feeling of discomfort that takes me days to shake off.

I dip in and out of other genres if something takes my fancy.  I don’t cross any of my list.  But don’t judge me because I haven’t read Jane Eyre (I will one day), or the latest prize winner.

I read what I love, and I love what I read!