January musings - The TBR Pile!
Help! The
TBR (To Be Read) pile just keeps on growing!
As much as
this wee blog is about my personal writing journey (and thank you for joining
me), I have found the most popular advice given is that reading is vital for
any writer. It’s like oxygen, necessary
for our existence. Read, read, read and
read some more is the mantra.
One of my
favourite quotes on this instruction is from Eudora Welty in her book, On Writing:
“Indeed, learning to write may be part of learning to read. For all I know, writing comes out of a superior devotion to reading.”
Reading was
certainly my first love. Libraries were (and
still are!) always a treasure trove of discovery. I loved the escape of stories, and have fond
memories of reading under the bedcovers with a torch, well past bed-time, from
a young age. Writing in to join the
Penguin Club (yes, back in the days when snail mail WAS the only option). Then when I got older there was Borders, that fabulous
superstore of books, both in Auckland and the magnificent flagship on Oxford
Street, London. How many rainy cold
London Sundays did I spend in there!
From that I
think my desire to write grew. To write
stories, to have books of my own in these same libraries and bookstores. To spend hours in a zone of crafting at a
novel, chapter after chapter, until it is finished.
And reading
is a big part of the journey. I’m still
an avid reader, although the time is a little less available than when I was
ten! I have lists of books to read on
GoodReads, on the wish lists with Book Depository and Audible and Amazon. Scraps of paper in long finished notebooks hold
vital lists of ‘must-reads’. The Kindle
has swathes of books I don’t even remember ordering, but must have been
recommended at some point. And then
there’s the books that have been chosen from bookstores, on travels close and
far, sitting on the bookshelf, hoping they get picked next. And isn’t there nothing more pleasurable than
choosing a book, and starting on that first page. A new journey of discovery.
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| January 2017 - TBR pile |
Do you have
an ever growing TBR pile?
Have you had
a good reading session or three over the Christmas break?
Where is
your favourite place to read?
Happy
reading, and writing, for 2017!
What I’m currently reading:
What I’m listening to on
Audible:
What I’m listening to on
Podcast:
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