My Love Affair With Books

I love to read. I mean really love. Like in the nerd-girl, emotionally caught up in a book, stay awake until 1am reading when my baby wasn't sleeping through the night type of love. I've always enjoyed reading and I am doing my darnedest to instill that love in both my children.

Books are an escape for me. A place to unwind and detach from all the responsibilities and chores of normal life. The hubs and I are headed out of town this weekend for a wedding and I'm so excited for time in the airport and on the plane to tear into a new book. I told you... this girl loves her books. (Side note: I'm also really looking forward to some time away with my husband just in case you were starting to wonder!)

Here are some of the great reads I've plowed through over the past few months...

State of Wonder by Ann Patchett is the story of a young woman who travels to South America to find out what really happened to her coworker who died in the Amazon. Her search leads her to the jungle to seek out a reclusive doctor in the process of developing a new drug. The story starts slow but the characters are full of a sense of mystery that pulls you in. By the end, I couldn't put it down.

One Thousand White Women by Jim Fergus is historical fiction loosely based around the late 1800s when the American Indians were being forced off their land and onto reservations by the government. It is written in journal style from the viewpoint of a young woman who takes part in a peace-keeping mission where the government sends white female volunteers to be married to Cheyenne Indians. While the main idea is fictional, the story is full of vivid description of tribe life and graphically depicts the sorrow of the tribes being forced out of their own way of life. While it is painful to read at times, I found the story to be really interesting and quite moving.

The Distant Hours by Kate Morton is a blend of history and fiction, with about half the story taking place in WWII England and the rest in early 1990s London. A young woman's mother receives a letter fifty years after it was sent and her reaction sends her daughter on a quest to learn more about her mother's past. In the course of her discovery, she is led to an old castle in rural Kent where her mother was sent as a refugee during the war. This book takes a long time to really reel you in (maybe 100 pages or so) but once it does, the mystery and suspense are wonderful. I really liked this one.

The Postmistress by Sarah Blake is my most recent read. I literally finished it Tuesday. Another historical fiction novel set around WWII, bouncing between Cape Cod and Europe, this one wasn't my favorite. The story is vivid and the writing is good, but the end left me dissatisfied. It didn't wrap up as much as I would have liked and that gave me an unsettled feeling when I finished. The author splits the narration between three different women and one man briefly, which actually gives the book more depth, but the end is still weighing on me. I guess I'm the type that likes things all tied up and you don't really get that with this book.

If you are a book nerd too, and particularly if you like historical fiction, these books might be just what you need. It's funny that I tend to read more during the summer even though I don't have schoolwork to keep me busy the rest of the year.

What have you read recently that you enjoyed??