TODAY is....

WORLD BOOK DAY!

I LOVE books.

It was a great blessing to grow up in a home filled with books of all kinds.  Reading is such a marvelous past-time, no matter what the genre.

As I exercise or drive around town, I listen to books on tape.  Right now, I'm listening to Charles Dickens' GREAT EXPECTATIONS.

I know that his books are not appealing to a lot of people, but over the last couple of years, I have become addicted and either listened to/read/watched (or all Three) of most of his books.

He is so profound; he knows the human heart so well.  No one makes characters memorable like Dickens does.  Here is a paragraph from Great Expectations when Miss Havisham realizes that she has ruined Estella's life forever because of her own wish to seek revenge on a man:

That she had done a grievous thing in taking an impressionable child to mould into the form that her wild resentment, spurned affection, and wounded pride, found vengeance in, I knew full well. But that, in shutting out the light of day, she had shut out infinitely more; that, in seclusion, she had secluded herself from a thousand natural and healing influences; that, her mind, brooding solitary, had grown diseased, as all minds do and must and will that reverse the appointed order of their Maker; I knew equally well. And could I look upon her without compassion, seeing her punishment in the ruin she was, in her profound unfitness for this earth on which she was placed, in the vanity of sorrow which had become a master mania, like the vanity of penitence, the vanity of remorse, the vanity of unworthiness, and other monstrous vanities that have been curses in this world?

 I did not know what I had done. What have I done! What have I done!" And so again, twenty, fifty times over, What had she done!  "I stole her heart away and put ice in its place."

Dickens just speaks to my soul.  But, I read lots of other books also.

I just finished reading a book about elephants during WWII in Burma.  Man, I had no idea they were so smart and so like humans in some ways.  They are amazing animals, and did remarkable feats during WWII making bridges and transporting people to safety.

Before listening to Dickens, I listened to SHOE DOG, about Phil Knight and inventing the Nike shoe.  Just fascinating.

Or how about books about RUMPOLE of THE BAILEY?  Mom and dad loved to watch that show, which I found quite boring, but man, do I love the books.  I've read or listened to them all multiple times.  They are filled with dry humor and witticisms, mostly directed at his wife: She Who Must Be Obeyed.  Just great fun....for me, at least.

One of my favorite books is SEABISCUIT; a fabulous book about a horse, which normally would not hold my interest, but it's so well written and so well researched.

And UNBROKEN by the same author:

Truthfully, there are just too many good books to name.

SO, I'll just say this on WOLRD BOOK DAY, I'm so glad my family introduced me to READING at an early age.  It has been such a great blessing in my life for so many reasons.

I can't finish this post without adding that I also read the SCRIPTURES every day.  I have been a reader of the Book of Mormon for many years.

It should really be at the head of my list as I've read it the most and the most often.  And, I still love it and find in it new wisdom on a regular basis.  

Okay, I'll say it again:

I LOVE BOOKS!