So Many Books and Not Enough Time

Today and all week I have been going down to the grassy area over looking the beach and sitting in my lawn chair an reading. I am reading Garden Spells by Sarah Addison Allen I am really enjoying this enchanting book about 2 sisters and a small town with lots of history and a special garden.

The weather has been perfect. In the 80s and the beach is thriving with families since school is out. I love it there as I can not olny read with the sound of the ocena in the background but I also get to people watch, another "fav" thing of mine to do. :)

The chattering of the kids playing and frolicking in the water and the water pounding on the pilings of the pier are a great back drop of noise level while reading.

It is peaceful and yet populated with scattered faces of sheer happiness of the summer month's fun to be had.

I do so love this time of year.

I have so many good books that are intriging me at the moment and looking over them I see there is not enough time to actually read them all. So I decided to list some of here in the sidebar and then read them in that order. I have such a time trying to decide which one to read and then I find another in the store or get one as a gift and "poof" my whole decision is interrupted and I am confused once again as to which to choose.. :(

Lets see if this little organized list helps me go through some of my books that are piling up everywhere. Now to try and stay out of the book stores!!!! hmmmmmm

What's in a Story?

Every novel is a long, involved, fictitious story that is intended to entertain or instruct the reader. In order to better understand a novel one should understand that it starets with a setting adds charachters and then gets into a plot.





One viewer has decided that women are the readers. A couple of years ago, British author Ian McEwan conducted an admittedly unscientific experiment. He and his son waded into the lunch-time crowds at a London park and began handing out free books. Within a few minutes, they had given away 30 novels.



Nearly all of the takers were women, who were "eager and grateful" for the freebies while the men "frowned in suspicion, or distaste." The inevitable conclusion, wrote McEwan in The Guardian newspaper: "When women stop reading, the novel will be dead."



McEwan's prognosis is surely hyperbole, but only slightly. Surveys consistently find that women read more books than men, especially fiction. Explanations abound, from the biological differences between the male and female brains, to the way that boys and girls are introduced to reading at a young age.



One thing is certain: Americans—of either gender—are reading fewer books today than in the past. A poll released by The Associated Press and Ipsos, a market-research firm, found that the typical American read only four books last year, and one in four adults read no books at all.
A National Endowment for the Arts report found that only 57 percent of Americans had read a book in 2002 a four percentage-point drop in a decade. Book sales have been flat in recent years and are expected to stay that way for the foreseeable future.



Among avid readers surveyed by the AP, the typical woman read nine books in a year, compared with only five for men. Women read more than men in all categories except for history and biography.





"Reading requires incredible patience, and the ability to 'feel into' the characters. That is something women are both more interested in and also better at than men," says Brizendine.
Rekindling the Reading Magic.



There are exceptions to the fiction gap. More boys than girls have read The Harry Potter series, according to its U.S. publisher, Scholastic. What's more, Harry Potter made more of an impact on boys' reading habits. Sixty-one percent agreed with the statement "I didn't read books for fun before reading Harry Potter," compared with 41 percent of girls.

I believe with my own reading that I can drift into a new world of any book I am reading giving me the escape I may need for that particular moment. I relate to all my charachters and feel either their joy or sadness. Books warm the heart and ecery story being told can be as complex or simple as the next with still a point to made across each page the reader.