This blog first appeared for the Christian Association of Writers Blog called More Than Writers, which you will find here. I just felt I liked it on my own blog as well, so here it is: To Read or Not To Read?

I love reading. But I love reading my books, or rather, my kind of books. Even in school, where I would devour books at top speed, if it was a book issued by school, it would be left at the bottom of the pile. Only because I had been told to read it. Isn’t that odd? Sometimes I would regret shuffling it down the stack of library books, for the book turned out to be a lot better than I thought.

Did that help the next time I was told to read a particular book? Not at all. Even now, particular people telling me a book is a must-read, waving it at me, makes that book drop down the TBR Pile at alarming rates. Even if I had been planning on reading it some time anyway.

Now you know my stubbornness, you might be surprised to know that I review for three different Book Tour companies. “Doesn’t that count as someone telling you what to read, and even when to read?” You would think so! But I get to choose what I read, and in what month. So maybe that is what makes the difference?

A few of the books have been hard work, although I will always read to the end of a book. Some books have been fine, or nice. Several books have been amazing. This week, I read one of those amazing books. It was by a fellow Christian writer, and I had been looking forward to her book, as we had a brief chat on the Book of Faces about her book. Even vaguely knowing the writer makes me want to read their books.

This book, The Nature of Small Birds, didn’t have that much to do with birds but dealt with adoption, family relationships and trusting God. I loved it. It was such an intriguing, soothing read, full of helpful wisdom and blessings. I had to read it before a certain date, but that was no trouble at all. My perverseness in rejecting must-read books didn’t stand a chance.

There is another reason for not reading a book. That is because I know it’s going to be so amazing, I don’t want it to end, so I don’t even start. At the moment I have one book like that winking at me: The Trials of Isabella M. Smugge by our Ruth! I can’t wait to read it, but I don’t want it to end either. I have been desperately waiting for this book ever since I read the last lines of The Life of Isabella M. Smugge. And now it’s here, sitting on my shelf, making my fingers itch to read it. But then I will finish the book. And Ruth hasn’t finished book three yet.

At the moment I’m reading through some of my TBR books, getting my days back into a kind of rhythm after a mad few months. Life has been messy and disorganised, leaving me to read and write at the weirdest of times or not at all. With the kids’ schoolwork starting and classes at set times, life is getting back on track, and I’m rushing through a murder mystery, counting the pages till I’m going to settle in with Isabella. The humbug has gone already, by the way.