Sunday, January 3, 2010

Bookworm

I'm a bookworm. :)

I absolutely love to read! It's one of my favorite hobbies. It's relaxing but also a lot of fun to get swept up in a really well-written story. The genres I enjoy range from travel fiction, adventures/thrillers/mystery and historical fiction to the occasional chick-lit. Buying new books all the time is expensive, which is why I am a huge fan of the library. (Or receiving books as gifts.) It makes reading a much more frugal hobby! My city's public library system is fantastic, because if I can find a book through their online database that is available at another branch, I can simply request a hold on it and they will send it to my nearby branch for pickup. Another way I avoid buying books is through family: Mom and I have a very similar taste in books, so she buys a lot of them and then sends them to me to read. I, in turn, pass them along to another bookworm girlfriend or donate them to the library.

Last year, in an effort to read more and meet new people, I joined a book club through Meetup.com. Each meeting costs $1 and, depending on the location, about $3 for parking. I went to two meetings last year before my CFA studying got in the way and now I'm excited to go back. The next book club I am going to is at the end of January for The Girl with the Dragon Tattoo.

What am I reading now? Well, I finally finished The Pillars of the Earth over my Christmas vacation which was absolutely amazing! It's now in my top 5 books of all time, because it was a historical fiction novel that had everything you could ever want in a novel: action, adventure, romance, twisting plots, you name it! I definitely recommend it if you love to read. Don't be intimidated by the number of pages, it goes by very quickly. For Christmas, I received Shantaram and Unaccustomed Earth. I've already started reading Shantaram and I can't put it down! :)

If you like to read, what are your recommendations for books? Some of my favorites include Eat Pray Love, The Lovely Bones, Almost French, I Dreamed of Africa, Watership Down, Angela's Ashes, Hitching Rides with Buddha, Water for Elephants, The Namesake... I could go on and on! :) Also, how do you save money if you like to read?

6 comments:

Revanche January 3, 2010 at 10:00 PM  

I read anything I can get my hands on. Which means I'm in the middle of Terry Pratchett's Nation, Diane Ackerman's The Zookeeper's Wife, Malcolm Gladwell's What the Dog Saw, a random free book on the Kindle In the Heart of Darkness, and have a handful of free classics queued up for the next time I've got a hankering for classic lit. And I've got stacks of comic books waiting to be read: 13 volumes of 100 Bullets, the collected volume of SCUD the Disposable Assassin and just finished up Local by Brian Wood.

That last one is heartwrenchingly excellent, by the by.

To save money I'm a borrower: library, friends, and paperbackswapper. And I always pass on books that have been given to me to keep the book karma going.

Anonymous January 3, 2010 at 10:09 PM  

I'm a reader - will read anything! I use the library - even though I read and reread books over and over again, I never buy books. I guess I might change that should I become fabulously wealthy, but it's never been a dream of mine to actually have a huge personal collection. The books I do own don't really reflect my tastes - they're all gifts, handmedowns or bought cheaply when I was younger.

SavingDiva January 3, 2010 at 11:06 PM  

When I'm not in school, I average at least a book a week...since starting graduate school, my reading has fallen off! I have a resolution to read one book a month. If you read any good nonfiction or classics, let me know! :)

Shen Dove January 4, 2010 at 11:18 AM  

We have similar taste in books because many of the books you've named, I've either read or they are currently on my "to-read" list. I am fortunate enough to live walking distance from my local library, so I go there pretty regularly to pick up any books that look interesting for my public transportation commute. I also trade books with friends, co-workers and family members.

Some of my neighbors also leave books on their doorsteps in the warmer months once they've finished with them for anyone to take. It's one of the many reasons why I love where I live : )

Anonymous January 6, 2010 at 8:52 PM  

I use paperbackswap.com, and I always have books to read. I just finished The Help, The Commoner, and The School of Essential Ingredients.

The Lost Goat January 16, 2010 at 12:05 AM  

I pretty much read everything free that comes on Kindle - it changes, and most of it is pretty good stuff (although the rest is generally gut-wrenchingly awful). Now that you can download Kindle reader for PC, you don't even have to buy the e-reader.
I have a library, but they have a tendency to try to charge me for books I have returned (I am currently fighting them over two hardbacks which I am sure I have returned and they are sure I have not), so they're becoming less and less a good option for me. But when I lived in Dallas, and had a fantastic library system at my fingertips, I used it all the time for everything.

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