Wednesday, May 13, 2009

I'm a Book Junkie!

Yep, I’ll admit it – I love books, always have and always will. This love affair started about the time I learned about Dick and Jane running around with Spot and Puff. It progressed from there to reading every Nancy Drew book I could get my hands on. Then I segued to the Little House on the Prairie stories. Imagine my astonishment – and remember I grew up in South Texas and had never seen a snowflake until I went to college – that it was possible to get stranded by a blizzard. Who’d a thunk it?

Books open new horizons, they’re a cheap vacation, sometimes they’re a respite from reality and they can be a great upper for the psyche. In high school I was a library assistant, and it probably isn’t much of a stretch to say I read the entire fiction section – mysteries, thrillers, romance and literary – you name it and I devoured it. I read Gone with the Wind three times by the time I was fifteen. Personally, I wanted to smack Scarlett up side the head. I mean really, she preferred that wussy Ashley over macho Rhett. What a dolt!

One of my all-time favorite books – it’s old but not quite as antique as GWTW – is Leon Uris’s Exodus. It’s an epic portrayal of post WWII Europe and the creation of modern Israel. And in that vein I’m also a great fan of Ken Follett, especially Lie Down With Lions. Good old Ken is a romance writer at heart, not that he’d ever admit it. Set in Afghanistan during the Soviet invasion, this book is a spy thriller intertwined with a fairly hot romance.

Fast forward to present day. I own every one of Janet Evanovich’s Stephanie Plum books. I particularly like Grandma Mazer, and Joe Morelli – whew, is it getting hot in here?

There are quite a few RWA authors that I buy without even reading the back cover, and they span the spectrum from funny, to sweet to thrillers. In the mystery realm I’ve discovered a new author named Andrew Gross. He co-wrote with James Patterson but has gone off on his own. He has that Hitchcock twist down pat. And the newest addition to my “keep” pile is Sara Addison Allen’s Garden Spells. What a feel good book!

So whether you’re planning to sit on a beach or chill out in a hammock, grab a good book and enjoy.

BTW, what are some of your favorites?

Ann DeFee
The Man She Married, HAR, Feb. 2009
Top Gun Dad, HAR, Oct. 2009

5 comments:

Anonymous said...

Wow! I could have written this post. Dick and Jane, Nancy Drew, Little House and, yes, Lie Down with Lions...and having read everything the librarian handed me. Now, I'd have to add Emma, Pride and Predjudice, the Creed and McKettrick series by Linda Lael Miller and the MacGregor series by Nora Roberts.

Ann DeFee said...

To Anonymous - we should share books. LOL
Ann

Estella said...

I , also, love the Stephanie Plum books.

Trish Milburn said...

Ann, no surprise that I'm a big book fan as well. I have almost 1,000 books in my house, no lie. I have the book-buying disease. :)

That said, comparatively few are keepers. I can really enjoy a book but decide not to keep it. But the ones that are keepers are the hardbacks of Nevada Barr's Anna Pigeon mystery series, J.R. Ward's Black Dagger Brotherhood series, all of Pamela Morsi's historicals, and some books by very close friends such as M.J. Fredrick, Colleen Gleason, Stephanie Feagan and others -- whose books, incidentally, I'd love even if I didn't know them from Adam.

Rox Delaney said...

Exodus is one of my favorite books too!