Summer Reading

My To-Read Shelf

I've always been a reader.

As anyone who reads this blog regularly knows, romance novels are my books of choice, but I also love mysteries, post 9/11 CIA spy novels, and I even take the occasional foray into non-fiction, if the subject interests me (and many of them do).

I read all the time. I read my way into the city for work in the morning, and  I read my way home. Sometimes if I'm in the middle of a chapter or right at the end of a book I'll read as I walk the NYC streets from Grand Central Station to work. I read all day on Saturday, stretched out on my family room couch during the winter, and outside in our outdoor oasis when summer comes calling.

And it's not enough for me to just read the books. I have to own them. I am a huge re-reader, so I need to have not just my favorites, but pretty much everything that I have ever read - readily accessible just in case I'm in the mood for it again.

And if I don't have at least five or six books stacked up and waiting to be read, I start to get antsy. 

One of the major benefits of moving to the suburbs is the built in bookshelves that line two entire walls in the family room, and one of the very bottom shelves is designated my "to-read" shelf. I don't - can't - possibly wait until I finish a book to buy my next one. Instead, all I do is go to my to-read shelf and decide what I'm in the mood for.

On any given day there is a mixture of genres and authors just waiting for their chance to be opened. Right now I have, among others, the next five books in J.D. Robb's excellent futuristic "in death" romance/mystery series, a John Grisham book I somehow managed to miss, some Elin Hildrebrand because it's summer and no one writes summer better, and a little non-fiction in the form of The Wolf of Wall Street, the fabulous Nora Ephron anthology, and Bringing In Finn, a beautiful and thoughtful gift that showed up in my mail one day from my fellow blogger and lovely friend Christie Tate.

It's an eclectic mix but well, I'm an eclectic sort of girl.

So if you're looking for me this summer, I'll be the one sitting outside, drink in hand and sunglasses on, surrounded by unread books. And really, there's no better place to be.