One of my (very few) New Year resolutions was to read more books in 2014.
I used to read all the time.
Almost every spare moment was spent with my head in a book.
As an only child of book-loving parents, it was natural, in those pre-internet, pre-social media days, that I would find entertainment and adventures within the pages of a book.
I graduated from Enid Blyton to children's classics, from popular fiction to pretty much anything I could get my hands on. As I read the odd racy bestseller, a friend's conservative mother would say, 'she's reading what?'
That continued through my student years and my 'twenties. Even when parenthood came along, I'd still manage to find find time to read books by favourite authors. Instead of reading a book a week, I managed a book a month.
Then, along came the internet into our home and an endless supply of material to distract me from the finely crafted printed word.
Reading became something I only did if I was sick or on holidays, and once I got an iPad, even that couldn't be guaranteed.
So one of my resolutions for 2014 is to get back to reading. Not ebooks but real books.
Books that I can pop in my handbag to read over coffee without worrying about spilling said coffee over an expensive electronic device.
Thanks to Karen at A Quiet Corner , I found out about the year long reading challenge being hosted by Laura from Circle of Pine Trees, and I decided to join.
I've already read my first book of the year, 'Gone Girl' by Gillian Flynn.
I'd read a review of it on a blog last weekend and thought it sounded interesting, even though thrillers aren't normally my cup of tea.
So when I saw a copy of it while leaving a bag of clothes into a local charity shop, I bought it.
So for the last three days, I couldn't put it down as I want to find out what exactly happened to Amy who has disappeared on her fifth wedding anniversary.
Was it the husband (it's always the husband) or someone or something else?
Without giving anything away, I'll say I really enjoyed around two thirds of the book. There were lots of surprises and twists, and the writing swept me along. But then, to me anyway, the plot began to get silly and I didn't like the ending. Interestingly, I've since read that Flynn is changing the ending for the film script.
Now, I feel I want to get back to reading some literary fiction and 'Eleven Kinds of Loneliness' by Richard Yates is the next book I intend reading.
