March 17, 2014

Good Reading? You Betcha!

It is no secret that I love books. From the first time I learned to read—wait—even BEFORE I learned to read I loved books. My parents both instilled a love of books in me. My mom tells the story of one time when a guest was visiting our home and she commented that she was surprised that I was so young and was reading. Well, what she had seen was me sitting on the steps “reading” a book that had been read to me so often that I had it memorized. I suspect it was a Dr. Seuss book or Frick and Frack (although I can find nothing online to substantiate that there really was a book about Frick and Frack) but it was a book that I knew cover to cover because it had been read to me so often.

I tried to instill that love of reading with our sons and while the youngest insists that “he does not read” he really does. He does not sit down with a book like I do but he reads online all the time. He is not illiterate by any means. I suspect he says it just to bug me.

There are so many great ways to get books these days. Libraries are in almost every town and those that don’t have actual buildings may use those nifty Bookmobiles that come on specific days. Awesomeness on wheels.

I recently found out about a great little thing that exists on Goodreads. How it took me so long to jump on the Goodreads bandwagon is beyond me but now that I am on it I can’t get off. Goodreads is a wonderful website where readers can go to connect with other readers and authors and is a place to also keep track of what you are reading yourself. Once you create a profile you can make bookshelves with different labels to keep track of your books. I have a little widget on the right side of this blog page that keeps a running list of books I have completed and short summaries and reviews if I choose to write them.

But the best thing is that they do giveaways!!! If you see a little box that says Explore you can click on the arrow next to that (close to the top right side of the page ) and a drop down list will appear with Giveaways as one of the options. If you click on that it will take you to pages and pages of giveaways that are a great way to explore books that you might want to read but don’t want to buy yet. I have entered a bunch and have won 4 books in just a couple of months of doing it. The first one came very quickly and I read The Ogallala Road quickly and learned a lot about something that I knew nothing about before which is always a great thing. The second book, Downsize With Style, arrived from Australia this week and I am hoping to get it read this week. It is another book that looks like a great read and a good thing for me to embrace. All this for free!

Maybe you have all already been on board with the Goodreads Giveaways for a long time but if not make sure you check it out. When you get one of these “first reads” it is always helpful to the author to leave a review. Reviews, especially for self published or independently published authors, are a very important way for authors to get their names out there and for others to find them. Reviews are a very effective means of advertising and many authors use these Goodreads giveaways to boost readership.

Don’t forget to leave a comment on this post to enter my 6 Year Blogaversary Giveaway where one of the items is a book! Seems appropriate, doesn’t it??? And while you are at it—-have a Lucky Charms St. Patrick’s Day cookie fresh from the oven. You can find the recipe by going to SugarPlum Blog. I made a few changes and they still turned out fabulously. Enjoy!