Readerly Friends! discussion

Share a little about yourself and what you like to read. Are you doing a Goodreads challenge? What genre books are you into? Do you run a book blog? Whatever you'd like to share about yourself, please do.

Okay, I will go first.

A little over two years ago, I was pregnant with my fourth child and my mother was dying of her second bout with cancer. Her husband was also dying of Parkinson's Disease. It was a really, really tough time in my life for reading for pleasure, but I was also trying to get more serious about publishing fiction, so I felt like I really needed to step up my reading, regardless of "life" happening. I guess in my case it was "life happening" as well as "death happening."

I bought myself a Kindle but I really had trouble getting used to it that first year. Eventually after my daughter was born and my parents were buried, my life "settled" down a bit and I was able to read a bit more.

As you might expect, I have read quite a bit of non-fiction about pregnancy and grief (although there remains to be published a very good book about handling *both*). I regularly come home from the library with a dozen non-fiction books on any given subject that interests me.

I also started reading more comic books, short stories, and novels. At this point, including the books I read with my kids (I homeschool and read all their books with them), I probably read about 12 books a month. I don't always post them because sometimes I think people are too judgmental about what others read, and I'm not always up for discussing what I'm reading.

In this group I'll probably play more of a moderator role, but I am always interested in what others are reading, so I will try to join in as much as I can.

Hi I'm Tania and reading has always been my greatest passion until I started writing novels five years ago! (I have self-published two so far with Create Space on Amazon, but I'll save the details on them for the Self-Promotion thread.)

I started seriously writing at a very low point in my when my son Caleb was diagnosed with Aspergers, ADHD, OCD and ODD. In other words he is a very difficult and violent child who has to be medicated and supervised very closely. His violence towards school teachers is such that even in the special autism unit that he should be attending at the moment, the teachers and support staff cannot handle him and he simply has not learned anything, despite being quite bright. He is a good reader and loves Pokemon Fanfiction but until I introduced him to Khan Academy a month ago his mathematical skills were very basic. He is currently refusing to attend school so we are in the process of organising home based learning for him through the local Education Department (Open Access College) which will be phone and internet based.

I have not wanted to do this as the time he is at
school is the only respite I get from the traumatic stress of coping with a child with these problems, but it is clear that he is not coping emotionally with school and it is likely that I will never be able to return to work (school teacher - music).

It has taken a huge toll on my health and well-being and 7 years ago I was diagnosed with Rheumatoid Arthritis which requires constant pain medication (or else no housework gets done!) However because of these very circumstances it has allowed me to write full length novels which I consider to be one of the greatest blessings of my life. Just to have the blocks of time needed to read through longer novels is a great blessing - so different to writing shorter stories - I cannot imagine that I would have had this great opportunity before retirement without these seeming disasters in my life. Every cloud has a silver or maybe golden lining if we have the right attitude.

I have 3 children (20, 12 and 10), two sons and then my daughter so it's a busy life with my husband and his sport (umpiring) commitments, so I treasure my opportunity to read and discuss books with my children. Now that I've done so much writing I read very differently, pulling apart each author and working out WHY I like what they do. With my 20 year old son we are discussing George RR Martin's Song of Ice and Fire, while my daughter likes me to read Rainbow Fairy Magic novels with her, and with my aspergers lad we read Emily Rodda and Jack Russell Dog Detective stories...

For myself I have read nearly every Agatha Christie novel, Georgette Heyer, Jane Austen, the Brontes, Mary Stewart, DE Stevenson oh and her ancestor Robert Louis, Elsie Jeannette Oxenham, LM Montgomery, Mary Grant Bruce and many more that I'll discuss on the forums.

Anyway that's enough about me, I want to hear about the rest of you!

Hey peeps. My name is Ashesh. Avid reader, of all genres. Was on the group on FB, glad to see it here as well. I recently finished reading Ayn Rand's "The Fountainhead", followed up by "Wheels" by Arthur Hailey. Also being a comic fan, I picked up Alan Moore's "Watchmen", "V for Vendetta" and Art Speigelman's "Maus"