In My Book Stack

I love to read.  I have always loved to read, from age eight and reading in bed after "lights out" with a flashlight propped between my chin and shoulder, to now when I stay up until two am even though I know I shouldn't because I'm going to be so tired the next day but  I have to find out what happens.

When I find a book that I like, I like to hoard the entire series/books by the same author/books related to that subject so that I can read them all without having to wait.

Right now and for the past few years I have been mainly into non-fiction - I'm more interested in absorbing information than I am to be told a story (unless it's a Sandra Brown thriller and then I'm all in).  I'm going to pause and say that for the longest time I thought non-fiction was super stuffy books on presidents and world events and heavy topics that would not be fun for me to read.  And it is!  But it's so much more, too: I first found sewing books with ideas and patterns, and that was sort of the catalyst to find out what else was in this mysterious non-fiction section.  With the help of my library's amazing "new" section, I have been able to whittle down in quick order the types of non-fiction I'm most interested in: crafts, biographies of/reflections by people I find interesting but nothing too serious, cookbooks, home decorating and style, family and parenting books, self-help books, and what I think of as "fun life stuff" books.

I go in spurts of being super busy and not having a lot of time to read, to reading constantly with a huge pile on my nightstand ready to go.  This past summer I read seventeen books in the span of weeks when my kids had off from school, over the holiday months I don't read as much because I'm busy with craft shows.  But now that that's done I'm back to a stack and ready to plow through, and here's some of what I have waiting (please note the 8 x 10 photo of my kids peeking out behind this giant pile):

The 5 Love Languages (and The 5 Love Languages of Children) by Gary Chapman - This one has been circulating around the Internet for awhile now and it talks about the ways people like to show and receive love (acts of service, kind words, etc.).  Once you figure out your and your partner's love language, you can begin to lean into those things that bring them joy and make them feel move loved.  I've heard so much about it that I decided it was time to read it, and when I saw there was one relating to kids I figured I can always use more help in that area.

Walkable City by Jeff Speck - I heard great things about this and requested it from another library since ours didn't have it, and I wanted it because it seemed like it related to How to Love Where You Live by Melody Warnick, which I loved.

A Year Off I grabbed while looking for a book for my husband, and thought maybe he'd like to read it and then kept it for myself.  It's about traveling the world for a year and how to make it happen.  I read another book along the same lines last year about a family who traveled the world over the course of a year and it was really fascinating.

The Road Back to You is about the Enneagram personality test, which I've taken online and want to read more about.  It's Not Supposed to be This Way is about dealing with disappointment.  I can't remember exactly why I put this one on hold at the library but it must have been recommended or linked to another book I picked out.

The next four are all parenting books.  There are so many aspects of parenting, and the stage you are in changes so quickly, so I like to absorb all kinds of information on the subject because who knows what tool you're going to need to pull of your toolbox and when?  While not every idea and manifesto works for everyone, I like to see what other people think about on the subject and what's worked (or not) for them.

Clean Enough was handed off to me by one of the librarians while I was looking at movies because she knew it would be of interest to me (get to know your librarians and they will hold cool new books for you) - it's mostly good but not totally clean eating, and Pull Up A Chair is Tiffani Theissen's book of recipes, which, hello to any late 80's/early 90's child: if Kelly Kapowski writes a book you need to check it out.  Modern Machine Quilting is obviously a book for work, and I like to grab sewing books for quick ideas or, often, color combinations.

The problem with a stack like this is where to start?  And will I finish them all before they have to be returned?

What's in your book stack right now?