I love to read. I think it might be genetic. My mother practically lives at the library. She has stacks and stacks of books in her house. And, like me, she reads late into the night. As much I wish I could just write and read all the time, life gets in the way – day job, carting my daughter around to dance and music lessons, book promotion (Travelers), house work and, this time of the year, add on – holiday shopping, decorating, holiday party prep, gift wrapping, etc. Several baskets of laundry are currently piled in the corner of my family room, random decorations are half unpacked, dishes are piled in the sink. By the time my daughter is ready for bed, usually I’m ready to fall down, and because I don’t have more hours in the day, there goes reading and writing.

But, starting tomorrow, I have 7 glorious days off from work, plus two weekends. That’s 11 days of unencumbered time. My holiday to do list – write, read, hang with fam, repeat. I hope to get a lot of all 3 done. So that I’m prepared, I’ve created a specific reading list just for these 11 days. Call it my pre-New Years Eve resolution to finish these books before my staycation is over. I’m not sure I can accomplish reading them all since I still need to do those pesky things like housework, but I’m sure going to try!

  1. Americanah, Chimamanda Ngozi Adichie  – I have been reading this book for ages and I’m not even halfway through it. Not because it’s not great and not because I don’t love it. It’s because I can’t seem to just read one book at a time. The interruptions of work, social media, and just life in general also seem to get in the way. Plus, to be honest, I found myself sucked into a Netflix binge watch of that show The 100. I just wanted to know if they get out of the stupid mountain! (Thanks husband.) That’s over with now, so I plan to finally finish this book.

    american

  2. Where Do They Go?, Julia Alvarez – So excited to read this and I love that someone chose a children’s book for our book club this month. It’s unique and I think will spawn great conversation.where-do-they
  3. Hag-Seed, Margaret Atwood – I love retellings of Shakespeare. This book has been begging me to read it from my growing book pile and I will over the break. I will! (Power of positive thinking here.)
    hagseed
  4. Fallen, Lauren Kate – This will be a movie soon and I feel like I need to get on this bandwagon before that happens! My sister has some sort of 6th sense for YA novels. I remember her telling me ages ago about a post-apocalyptic book where they’ve instituted this thing called The Hunger Games. A year or so later, the book blew up and filming for a movie began. She told me about Fallen a long time ago also. I should have read it back then. Now I’m playing catch up! (Moral of this story: Listen to my sister when she says to read a YA novel.)
    fallen

  5. The Fault in Our Stars, John Green – I really, really don’t like balling my eyes out while reading books and I know that will happen with this one. But I also really, really want to read it. It’s been sitting next to my bed forever now. So I think I’m finally going to suck it up, grab a tissue box and crack open this book. (Preparing now for the tears.)
    fault-in-our

OK, 5 books, 11 days. About a book every 2 days. Let’s see if I can do it! Like the little train, I think I can. I think I can.