12.21.07
My name is Stacie Lewis and I am a reading addict.
Forget writing, I am an obsessive reader. Without a book I can’t sleep. I get incredibly irritable. I will drive an hour out of my way to hit a bookstore if I know I’m on the last pages of a current read.
And I will read anything if nothing else is available. Instruction manuals. The Sports Section. Anything. My Dad was a sales rep for Members Only jackets in the 80s. He used to give me his sample book which I would happily read, wiling away the hours waiting for him to finish work.
I also have rules about reading. Books should be destroyed when read. Pages folded. Bindings broken. Different genres must be read. And every book gets at least 100 pages to win me over. If it doesn’t, it is binned. There isn’t enough time to fill a life with bad books!
Wow. I am obsessed.
Which leads me on to the all important first annual Lewis Book Awards. (Why not?)
I read a gazillion (actual number) of books this year, but I will limit my shortlist to three. Furthermore, while society dictates that ‘Books of the Year’ lists are made up of books published in 2007, my Lewis Book Awards does not insist on anything so ludicrous as only reading books published in 2007.
My books are:
1. Gods in Alabama / Between Georgia – Joshilyn Jackson
Look I’m already cheating. That’s two books. But the first was so good with its heavy, humid southern mystery and passion and family traumas, that I read her next as soon as I found it and it was equally as delicious.
I keep telling my husband that I don’t like Sci-Fi. Even I don’t believe me anymore. Grass is part soap opera, part romance, part society drama and very much science fiction. In addition, it is a rare experience to read action and fight scenes so vivid my heart raced.
3. The Shadow in the North – Phillip Pullman
While everyone else is interested in His Dark Materials, I have fallen in love with Phillip Pullman’s Sally Lockhart Quartet. I chose The Shadow in the North because it is a dark and gorgeously engrossing read. For someone (me!) who loves an atmospheric Victorian mystery, full of all kinds of interesting tidbits about the age, it is perfect, what ever your age.
I would love suggestions as to what I should be reading in 2008. My name is Stacie Lewis and I am a reading addict. Please help!
