I love this photo. I could live in this room and be perfectly happy because  I have a thing for books and globes. I haven’t had a globe since I was 12 and I’ve been thinking a lot lately that I need one in my life. Soon. Preferably an old one with countries with extinct boundaries and forgotten names – much more interesting that way. In fact, I think I’ll go peruse Ebay when I finish this. I’ll let you know what happens.

Books. I’ve decided I’m going to commit to reading one book a month because one book is doable. I’m sure people who read one book every few days are smirking right now because that used to be me and I would have smirked. Now, I’m perfectly happy with one a month. Last month I read Margaret Atwood’s MaddAddam, the last book in her MaddAddam trilogy and I loved it. No review, no spoilers but I do recommend reading all three books in order and one right after the other. I wish I had waited to read all three one after the other because I have a bad memory and I had to think and think and think to remember some of the character’s back stories which, of course, makes the reading of the sequels so much better. Anyway, these books are so great, even if you don’t care for the genre, because they are so believable and you can see seeds of the premise of the books being sewn in our world today. It’s scary. Read these books.

This month I’m reading Amy Tan’s The Valley of Amazement. I’m about a third of the way through and, judging by my slow going, I think it’s going to go into March. It’s an engaging story and I’m liking it, it’s  just that I’ve been very busy lately and, honestly, I keep getting myself all caught up in reading a lot of poetry, flash and magazine articles online. Damned internet. But it’s my own fault. I should stick to Nook and not open the iPad to read my books. Anyway, I read Ms Tan’s books The Joyluck Club (one of my fav books and a great movie) and The Hundred Secret Senses years ago so I knew I’d like Valley. I find the daily life of other cultures fascinating, especially Chinese, Indian and Italian.

My next book is The Voyage Out by Virginia Woolf. I don’t know anything about this book but I read somewhere that all women should read it. In fact, I plan on reading only books by women this year, inspired by this.  Now, there’s actually a movement to encourage people to read only women writers in 2014 – you can google it. And there’s a Twitter presence too.  I don’t know if the Flavorwire article sparked the movement but I think it’s a good thing. You should do it.

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