Books are my friends. They can be your friends too.

I’ve had a lifelong friendship with books. It can be said, I LEA books. Sometimes it’s a love affair and sometimes it’s a challenge, but always, it’s engaging.  My mom was an avid reader and she passed the gene on to me. I didn’t get her cooking gene, just ask my kids, but I do read.

As a lover of words, I appreciate when they are used to tell a good story. The careful and thoughtful presentation of words contained within a book can create wondrous worlds to explore.  My books are my friends, and we often go exploring together. I have traveled far and wide, through time and space, to places real and imagined, with powerful paper wings.

Books have the power to comfort, entertain, enlighten, educate and seduce. (I’m a big fan of that seduce thing.) They can provide insight and inspire as their pages flip through my fingers in a fanciful dance of imagination.

It may sound trite or cliché to say that there have been times when a single book has changed my life and the way I look at the world around me, but it’s true. In 1999 I read Conversations with God by Neal Donald Walsh and it changed my life, thank you God. I think it’s awe inspiring to experience the magic of words presented by a distant stranger who has suddenly become a comforting friend through their sharing of words.

I have boxes of books just waiting for me in my TBR (to be read) pile, each calling to me – ‘pick me, pick me next’. As much as I enjoy the new technology of the ereader, I will never lose my love of books. Besides, they also make great door stops and paper weights. How practical and pragmatic of them.

So, tell me, how has your life been affected by books? Good, bad, or indifferent? Do you have a friendship, a love affair or a love/hate relationship? Whatever your choice, I hope you…. Enjoy Always, T