My love for the written word

I am thankful for reading. For awhile I was a literacy tutor for adults and my student (when we started he was 28), was reading at a fifth grade reading level. He improved more than two grade levels in the year and a half we met, and I couldn't have been prouder. It was an incredibly humbling experience; two of his goals were to learn how to write a check, and be able to read the label on a bottle of prescription medicine.

So today, instead of stopping to smell the roses, I am stopping to smell the books. Ahhh.

(This is how reading makes me feel)

Frederick Douglass said, "Once you learn to read you will be forever free." I couldn't agree more. I've been trying to make more time for myself lately - and part of that is taking more time to read. And with that, a little reading update.

I am proud to say that since my last Busy Bookworm Challenge update I have finished four books!

Books I've read in 2009

1. Nickel and Dimed: On Not Getting by in America by Barbara Ehrenreich
   
2. The Time Traveler's Wife by Audrey Niffenegger (for a review click here)
   
3. The Dogs of Babel by Carolyn Parkhurst (for a review click here)
   
4. What Happens In London by Julia Quinn
5. To Kill A Mockingbird by Harper Lee
   
6. All We Ever Wanted Was Everything by Janelle Brown
7. The Kitchen God's Wife by Amy Tan
8. Eat, Pray, Love by Elizabeth Gilbert
9. The Same Sweet Girls by Cassandra King
10. The Girls from Ames by Jeffrey Zaslow
11. The Secret Life of Bees by Sue Monk Kidd
    
12. Rattled!: A Memoir by Christine Coppa
    
13. The Romance Reader by Pearl Abraham (for a review click here)
    
14. Love Walked In by Marisa De Los Santos (for a review click here)
    
15. The Giver by Lois Lowry (for a review click here)
    
16. The Kite Runner by Khaled Hosseini
17. See You In A Hundred Years by Logan Ward (for a review click here)
    

Books still to read by the end of 2009

1. Revolutionary Road by Richard Yates
   
2. The Boy in the Striped Pajamas by John Boyne
   
3. Love in the Time of Cholera by Gabriel Garcia Marquez
4. The Bell Jar by Sylvia Plath
5. Anna Karenina by Leo Tolstoy (My goal is to start this book in 2009!)
6. The Book Thief by Markus Zusak
7. Water for Elephants by Sara Gruen
8. Pride and Prejudice by Jane Austen

I know I have a lot left on my to read list, and realistically I won't finish them all this year, but I'm going to prioritize and try to finish at least half of them. (Review of The Kite Runner coming later today!)

What about you dear readers? How are you coming on your own busy bookworm challenge? Do you love reading as much as I do? (Sometimes I wonder if anyone does!) What are you thankful for today?


(Photo: Let Me Help You Help Me)