reading

In particularly stressful times, I hide my face in a book. It is soothing to fill my head with other people's words and ideas rather than listen to the ones streaming (sometimes screaming) through my mind. Self-medication, of a non-dangerous type.

I have done a lot of reading this summer.

I already mentioned a few books in an earlier post, two by Amy Reed ( Clean and Beautiful ) and four by Lisa McMann ( Wake, Fade, Gone, and Dead To You ). I have since read Dogtag Summer by Elizabeth Partridge, which is a good story about international adoption and PTSD from the point of view of the adopted daughter. I have also enjoyed Chore Wh*re, by Heather Howard, about the experiences of an assistant to celebrities in Hollywood. I laughed out loud at every page. I recommend that book to anyone who needs an escape and a view of a radically different lifestyle. I am forgetting one more book...

I am halfway through A Boy Should Know How to Tie a Tie by THE Antwone Fisher, of the awesome movie about a foster child who grew older, joined the Navy, then grew up. I am also halfway through The Stranger, by Albert Camus, about a man who has little emotion or connection to people, and functions mostly to meet his physical needs which drive him (such as being hot, tired, hungry). Sound familiar? Well, he ended up in jail. Again, too familiar. I was just walking through the stacks at the library and the odd black and white cover of this book caught my eye. This is how I find most of my books, just as we Christians close our eyes, flip through the Bible and let God guide our pointer finger to the verse we need to hear that day. Other than that, when I read a great book, I tend to read everything else the author has written. I especially like personal accounts, biographies and autobiographies, and historical fiction and non-fiction. Anything that has really happened, or could have really happened, I enjoy reading. I do not enjoy science fiction or silly fluffy stories.

I have also spent a good amount of my free time reading blogs this summer. I check Cindy Bodie's, Claudia Fletcher's, and Linda Up North's almost daily. I have linked from Cindy's to Amanda's, and am enjoying her story of raising 21 children in such a loving, Christ-inspired way.

Look at me using the tool bar and inserting links!