Guilt Free Reading

As you can see from my reading list (which I hadn't update in a long time) I love to read....I come by it naturally as I was raised in a family of readers.

My dad was always reading the Reader Digest Condensed version of books...I don't know if you remember those but they would come about three or four times a year in the mail and have three or four stories in the book.

I never could figure out what was condensed about them?  What did they leave out?  Could you still follow the story or did they end every story with a cliff hanger so that you would have to go get the real book to find out what happened?

I guess with six kids to feed a condensed book was all the time that my dad had for reading!!

And my poor mother!!  I don't know that she even had time for reading a condensed book?

I think my real reading background came from my Grandpa and Grandma Gibbs...Bert and Melva were always reading...Bert read westerns and Grandma read romance novels (plus did crossword puzzles like a fiend! More about their reading habits in a later blog!)

Anyway, during the school year I always feel guilty when I read a book that's not educational in nature...I mean I'm suppose to be reading about new technology, or better teaching methods or how to inspire people to work harder (remember "Who Moved my Cheese"?;  "The Fred Factor: Are You a Fred?" and the one about the fish?)

To avoid this feeling of guilt I would wait until Thanksgiving or Christmas break and then read two or three books nonstop...then, you guessed it, I would feel guilty about ignoring my family or not getting home projects done!!

Well no more!! I have decided to read "guilt free" from now on....educational reading, recreational reading....it doesn't matter.....I'm reading what I want when I want.....John Sanford, Michael Connelly, Erik Larson, Malcolm Gladwell whomever, whenever.....if it looks good I'm reading it and guilt be damned!!

Besides, who says that I can't be a police detective in Minnesota or a lawyer in the back of a Lincoln Town car with Matthew McConaughey playing me in the movie.....And the best part....if I ever am a detective or a lawyer, then my reading for pleasure will suddenly become educational reading!!

I wonder what police detectives and lawyers read for pleasure?  Books about Superintendents????  Maybe...might just be my niche market for my first book...."Lumina Superintendent"