Books

Any person who knows me will tell you that I came from a family of readers. My sister and I love books, libraries, book stores, and any place that has books. Seriously, one of the first orders of business upon moving was finding the local library. One summer, when we were little girls, our mom read the entire Little House on the Prairie series. If you've never read this series of books, I am sad for you. Once you finish reading this post, you should find the books and read them. Go to your local library. They will have them. They are classics. I can and will spend hours on end in the library. It's a great way to pass the time, and borrowing books is great if you love to read, but are on a budget.

I love to read, but I don't always have make time to read. I take that back. I make time to read things like backs of cereal boxes, signs as I'm driving, sale papers, articles, and magazines. I can come up with a million and one excuses about not reading a book,  when in all honesty, it's because I don't make time to read. It's sad for me to admit that, but now I am doing something about it.

Before we moved I read about "The Empty Shelf Challenge". This is a challenge for the lovers of books to take in order to read more books than they did the previous year. 

The challenge goes like this: 

1. Empty one shelf on your bookshelf, nightstand, or wherever you keep your books.
2. Each time you complete a book take a picture of it on your shelf. The book doesn't have to be a literary classic. It can be a book that doesn't make you think, self-help book, chick lit, any other book that you want to read. The point is to read more.
3. Upload to any type of social media you may use: Pinterest, Facebook, Twitter, Instagram, etc. with the hashtag #EmptyShelfChallenge
4. Repeat with each new book you read and pretty soon you'll have a shelf full of new books that you have read.
5. If you want to make it more fun, you can set a goal for yourself. I set the goal of "Let's see how many books I can read this year".

Now, if you borrow a book from the library, it can't just stay on your bookshelf forever. (The library frowns upon book stealing, as does society. Don't steal books, no matter how much you love them!) Put the book on your bookshelf at home, snap the picture, then return the borrowed book.

If you prefer to read your books on a Kindle, Nook, or other tablet, take a picture of the screen and upload it with the number the book is in your reading challenge. If you're like me and you don't care which way you read the book, digitally or physically flipping the pages, you might have to figure out a system that works best for you. 

I was in the middle of packing up our belongings when I decided to try this challenge, so the bookshelf was already packed up and wrapped up in shrink wrap. I also failed to take pictures of the books I have read, so you will just have to take my word. I will start taking pictures of what I read. I just opted to keep count of the number of books I have read since starting the challenge on December 24th.
Here are the book titles I've read

1. Dancing On Broken Glass- Ka Hancock
2. Things We Set On Fire- Deborah Reed
3. Timebound- Rysa Walker
4. One For the Money- Janet Evanovich
5. Two for the Show- Janet Evanovich
6. Three to Get Deadly- Janet Evanovich

I've only read six books, but it's not a bad start since it's just now February. I am just beginning the fourth book in the Stephanie Plum series. I plan to read the entire Stephanie Plum series by Janet Evanovich. If you need a good suspense-comedy book to read, I recommend this series. Evanovich's character Stephanie Plum is a lingerie buyer turned bounty hunter. This character will make you laugh with her quick wit and not-so-good bounty hunter abilities. Read them. They are great!

I would love for you to take the Empty Shelf Challenge with me! If you need suggestions for books click here to go to the #emptyshelfchallenge page for Twitter. I would love to hear your book recommendations!

Also, if you are an Amazon Prime member and you have a Kindle tablet, you can get one pre-released book each month. They are called Kindle Firsts, and they are set to be published in March. These are the Kindle Firsts for February.