March TBR Challenge

Okay, I'm back from the memorial for my uncle. The celebration of life was well done and I enjoyed seeing the family. I'll tell you more about it tomorrow.

And thank you for all the wonderful thoughts on the car wreck and those artifacts I picked up. I really appreciated the suggestion from several people that I contact the local police. I'll do that today and let you all know if I found out anything.

For today though, I really want to get something up for the TBR Challenge 2011.

I totally signed up to participate in the challenge and here it is March already, with me having missed the first two months of the year, somehow. Has anyone seen January or February? They were here a minute ago...

At any rate, Wendy the Super Librarian, who is, not incidentally, also RWA's Librarian of the Year, is hosting this year's TBR Challenge. The idea is to pluck something out of your massive To-Be-Read (TBR) pile - yes, we know you have one. Don't lie - that loosely fits the theme, read it and blog about it on the third Wednesday of the month.

This month's theme? A new-to-you author.

So, Kate Elliott has been in my TBR pile for a long time. Spirit Gate and King's Dragon have both languished in the paper pile since before we moved. That's right - piled up with Eat, Pray, Love, which you all told me to go read to wash the movie from my head. I'll get to it, okay?

That's part of the point of this: to get to those books you've been meaning to read. KAK and I were just discussing yesterday how much less we read these days. I really want to devote more time to it. Getting on the TBR Challenge track is a great way to do it.

I also have about five pages of books waiting to be read in my Kindle. One of them is Kate's Cold Magic. Yes - a third unread book of this particular author who everyone and their parrot tells me to read and I keep not getting to.

So, there I was, struggling through the newest book in a series by an author who shall remain unnamed. Suffice to say I used to love love love this series. The last one was meh and this one was so unrewarding that I felt depressed reading it. Halfway through the book, I deleted it from the Kindle.

This is the modern, though less dramatic, version of throwing the book across the room.

I fumed for a bit, thinking it's me. I've lost my attention span. As one book blogger puts it, I lost my reading mojo. Maybe I just hate everything?

And, recalling the TBR challenge and that Kate Elliott is technically new to me, I opened Cold Magic.

Angels sang. Unicorns - yes, they were still dancing from before - capered madly.

You guys: This Is A Really Good Book.

I confess I'm only about 25% in. But immediately I felt in the hands of a master storyteller. I'm sinking into this world with the gratitude of a starving cat falling into a vat of tuna. It feels like forever since I couldn't wait to get back to a book. It's like discovering love all over again.

I would say more, but I have to finish my work so I can go read!