Below you will read 20 (somewhat sheepish) confessions about books that I am making today:

1. I rarely finish a non-fiction book. Sorry Michelle, as much as I loved Becoming, I just didn’t finish it.
2. I am an aspirational book buyer, usually of non-fiction titles. (see above)
3. I am drawn to reading to help me travel the world in both location and experiences. I am especially drawn to books/authors from a Chinese/Korean/Indian perspective. Cutting for Stone, Pachinko, The Good Earth being memorable for me.
4. I read most before bed. Otherwise my house is never quiet enough to read during the day.
5. I married a non-reader. (I know, what was I thinking.)
6. Only a few books have ever made me cry. The Art of Racing in the Rain was one of them.
7. If you ever need a book to give you hope, read The Language of Flowers by Vanessa Diffiendach. Still one of my all-time favorites.
8. I don’t read books related to mothers with mental illnesses doing poorly by their children.
9. I love to read a book about mormonism or polygamy. (I was raised in SLC, Utah as a non-mormon in a predominantly mormon area. Everything about the culture of that religion utterly fascinates me.)
10. When I just need a comfort read, I choose to rejoin the lives of Jaime and Claire in almost any of the published Outlander books. (Some I just like more than others.)
11. On a whim, I picked up Station Eleven by Emily St. John Mandel because it was a “local” read here in Michigan. It has haunted me ever since.
12. The first book I ever loved was Gene Stratton Porter’s A Girl of the Limberlost.
13. I really don’t like audiobooks. They just aren’t my jam. Give me a physical book with pages, please.
14. While I nursed my children I re-read a few of the great classics, the most memorable being Les Miserables. (Yes, I had that much time and focus during those late night sessions to read a hefty piece of literature.)
15. I have never read Austen. Instead, I was a huge fan of the Bronte sisters, Jane Eyre being a book I have also read in adulthood and loved even more.
16. I love to read series (YA series to be specific)–and to get lost in them. In fact if a book is in a series and I loved the first one, I will not wait for the next books to come to the library, I will (quite quickly) own the whole series (minus the first book which I got from the library.) The only exception to this rule is Twilight. I have read all of them. I will not own any of them.
17. I love that my teenage daughter has similar reading tastes to mine. We “borrow” from each other regularly. There are at least 3 books of hers that I am waiting to steal: Jaqueline Woodson’s Red to the Bone, and also, Six of Crows and Caraval.
18. My son thinks I talk about books too much.
19. I kept a running list of all the books I read from 2012 until 2017. For some reason, I either stopped reading books (very unlikely, although maybe…those were hectic years) or just stopped writing down titles (maybe I was embarrassed to write down that I had spread read the entire Outlander or Harry Potter series again…). I picked the practice up for like 3 months of 2020. This year sees me working to keep better record of the books I read.
20. I love my local library. I always choose way more books that I could ever read. I am very bad at returning the books that I borrow from them. I am very thankful that there are no longer any return fees.

And a bonus…

21. If there are two non-fiction categories I am very good at completing its Food writing and Garden/Nature writing. And cookbooks. I love to read cookbooks.