After a summer of non-fiction for book groups and studying a lot of instructional material for leading the youth group, I’ve taken some time in these first two weeks of September to dive deeply back into literature. It has been a reminder of just how much I love words and stories. I love how a skilled author can shape words into descriptions of ordinary things that create pictures in my mind, that take me right from my chair to a train rolling across the Dakotas at the turn of the century or to a green English farm or to a made-up land in an imaginary time. Here is what is on my Nightstand, in my purse or on my Kindle:

Currently Reading:

• The Big Rock Candy Mountain by Wallace Stegner
• Precious Bane by Mary Webb
• Beauty by Robin McKinley

Just Read:

• The Actor and the Housewife by Shannon Hale

Planning on Reading Soon:

• The Moonflower Vine by Jetta Carleton
• Trail of Crumbs by Kim Sunee
• Book of a Thousand Days by Shannon Hale

I also, after reading about Corinne’s excitement about it, got back into Bookcrossing, which I joined a few years ago. I released a bunch of books, never heard anything about them, then just started forgetting to do it as often. This week I released 3 books at a huge hospital I was visiting while taking a friend to an appointment. I was in 3 different waiting rooms, so it was perfect. Last week I released one at a local shopping complex. Just left it right on a bench near a quilting/knitting store. I decided it just was not wise to try and do it in the airports or on the planes I was recently on. Too much fear there to leave something behind without explanation. But, I hope that maybe someday I’ll hear back about some of my books and see where they’ve traveled.

Anyway, I seem to be in a mind to share favorite quotes right now, so here’s a bit of Hemingway on books:

“All good books are alike in that they are truer than if they had really happened and after you are finished reading one you will feel that all that happened to you and afterwards it all belongs to you; the good and the bad, the ecstasy, the remorse…”