Before you ask – yes, I have been reading again this week. I’ve read picture books for the day job and have added all of them to posts on the When a Book Might Help blog (although, granted, not all of the posts have been published yet).

I’ve been reading (and listening to audiobooks) for my own pleasure.  It’s been great.  I love to read!  But I’m starting to think I might need to go on a bit of a book diet.  In food terms, my eyes are bigger than my stomach.  I am in serious danger of overdosing on the books in my house… and I keep bringing in more!

In my front room I have two full shelves of books waiting to be read.  These are all books I have been given as birthday and Christmas gifts, books that I really wanted.  There are also some that I have picked up at shops, in library sales and at various author events.  Books I am longing to read.    How lucky am I?!

In my bedroom are the books that are higher up the ‘To Be Read’ list. These are the books that have a ‘best before’ date, like library books and books for work. Some are for reading groups and others are for college.  You have to be a book with a purpose to make it upstairs in my house.  I do try and slot in books from the front room every now and then but, as you can see, I’ve got lots of books in my three ‘priority’ stacks.

In theory, this is my idea of heaven. Books as far as the eye can see! Unfortunately, reading has to be slotted in around other things like work, sleep, walking the dogs, laundry, and a whole list of other stuff. You know how it goes.

Believe it or not, my book stacks have gone down a bit over the last couple of months. Since I handed in my last assignment for college I’ve been able to catch up on some of my reading for pleasure. Then I had a birthday and this lot arrived.  I don’t want to sound ungrateful, I’m really thrilled to have every one of these books.  On the other hand, I’m very pleased that I have read two of them before and four of them are for study.  It makes it easier to find room for the others on the TBR shelves.

I am especially delighted with these three books.  My best friend bought me The Astounding Broccoli Boy by Frank Cottrell Boyce and I received a personalised book-plate to put inside – Twitter is a wonderful thing!  My lovely partner bought me a signed copy of Four Stories by Alan Bennett.  I nearly always hear his stories in his voice when I read them.  She also found a shop that has close links with Jackie Morris.  They arranged for a copy of East of the Sun, West of the Moon to be autographed for me.  I can’t tell you how thrilled I was to find a personalised message and a drawing of a polar bear on the title page.  Her illustrations are stunning!

I would like to say thank you to my family and friends for all the wonderful books they buy me, to the booksellers, to the libraries who lend me more books every week, and to the magnificent writers and illustrators (and their agents and publishers) who produce them in the first place.  Please forgive me if I don’t write about the books I’ve read this week.  I’ve had a look at the next book on my priority reading heap and it’s about fairies – I’m off to curl up with a book.