They're Called Books

I have mentioned how my word to live by this year is lucubrate. I picked a word whose meaning I did not previously know to re-emphasize wanting to learn and getting all curious and academic, so the word is doubly appropriate. [confession!] I read mostly magazines. I love magazines, particularly the ones made of paper, that you hold in your lap and fold down the edges of pages you want to come back to, and rip out pages with beautiful hair to show your stylist, and file away pages to put in your house of dreams. After I've perused Redbook and Real Simple from cover to cover, and dabbled in Newsweek, I share them and then recycle them. If you add my magazine time to my blog-stalking and internet browsing time, you could say I've got a full-fledged hobby of light reading. And I don't intend to quit.

But, I do wish, for the sakes of:

developing a longer attention span,

reawakening an appreciation of the literary arts,

setting an example for my daughter, and

you know, to seem smarter---

I wish I read more books. 

Specifically, I wish I finished the books I started. Novels. Collections of short fiction. Maybe some non-fiction, too, if I want to go wild in my academic pursuits. If I read as many book pages as magazine pages each month (2,500+!), I'd probably get through 6 books each year. And so, 2011, I will finish 6 books before you end. So far, I've read the rather recent Cecilia Ahern's If You Could See Me Now, and I've started an old favorite, The Scarlet Pimpernel, by Baroness Orczy. (YA counts!)

What books made it to your must-read list so far this year?