Mimmsical Creations

Booking Through Thursday

1. What is your favorite kind of reading? Novels? Biographies? Mathematical textbooks?
   
   I love to read - plain and simple. I read all sorts of different things. I have a few favorites (some of which even surprise me!) though.
   
   We didn't have television when I was a kid. I missed out on some of the cultural icons of my age, but I think I benefited from reading instead of watching! My mom read out loud to me all the way up until high school, when I didn't have time to sit and listen anymore. I have read and re-read numerous books that I remember her reading out loud!
   
   My favorite guilty pleasure is Nora Roberts... I don't read romance as a general rule, but for some reason, I am caught by the trilogies that Ms. Roberts writes. There is something about the mystical, magical things she includes that catches me. My favorite is the Irish trilogy... I love the fairy story that is interwoven with the current day heroes and heroines. (Jewel of the Sun, Tears of the Moon, and Heart of the Sea)
   
   I also LOVE Patricia Cornwell. Kay Scarpetta is one of my all time favorite book characters. I find the books a little gruesome, quite scary at times, but I can't put them down. I vividly remember one evening a number of years ago - reading about a killer who was stalking young women who lived alone (I did at the time...) and getting in through open windows. I was sitting in my apartment alone, around midnight, with all my windows open. I ran around closing and locking them all immediately, and spent a rather restless night worried about serial killers finding me! But I love her anyway!
   
   I guess my favorite are novels... I like them all - I haven't met too many books I didn't like actually. My list of favorites would far out weigh my lists of books I didn't like. I'm re-reading the Harry Potter series now, as Mike reads them for the first time. I am also reading The Sparrow by Mary Doria Russell, one of Mike's favorites.
   
   As for non-fiction - I like self improvement types, or spiritual journey types. Currently reading True Balance by Sonia Choquette - see previous post. (and yes, I am currently reading three books!)
   
2. What do you like best about your favorite kind of reading? What keeps you coming back to that kind of book? Following a gripping story? Watching characters develop? Being educated about things and places you didn't know about? Letting your mind relax into someplace completely different?
   
   I love books because they have the ability to transport your mind into other places, situations, characters, etc. (or at least MY mind!) For a short time, while reading, I am somewhere else. It is not escapism, but it is imagination, dreaming, living outside my own little realm. I have been to many places while reading - all in my imagination, of course.
   
   Reading about Kay Scarpetta allows me to be a medical examiner for a short time - not something I would do in real life, but it fascinates me. Reading Nora Roberts' romances allows me to live in a fairy-possessed cottage in Ireland. I can practically smell the sea and feel the breeze, hear the fairy music. I love learning about different places, ways of living, jobs, words, etc. Books are magical to me. I get drawn into the characters lives, and feel a part of them for that short time. More than movies, books allow my imagination to come alive! I can picture what the author is describing - in my own way, not in someone else's perception.
   I keep reading because it keeps my imagination going. I keep reading because I keep learning (yes, even from Nora's romances!) I keep finding new things to dream about, learn about, imagine. And that is a very good thing!