Books, books and more books

I love books. I don't remember enjoying them much when I was a small child (like my granddaughter Emme does - books are her favorite 'toys'). But I remember falling in love with reading in high school. My favorite author back then was John Steinbeck. I loved English class, both the reading and the writing, in high school and college.

Years ago when our first house was up for sale, the Realtor who handled our open houses told me she enjoyed spending time at our home because when there were no potential buyers there, she could look at all the books. And she told me that so many homes she had been in are boring - nothing to do when times were slow.

I began collecting books about that time. I've since purchased thousands of books and have kept most of them. My husband and both of our sons also love to read. How cool is that? But son Dave and I are the only ones who tend to keep the books we've bought.

Both sons even have an ongoing feud over who is going to get my Great Books of the Western World when I'm ready to pass them on. Guess I'll have to keep them and let them fight over them when I'm gone.

My favorite genre is true crime - give me a juice serial killer book any time over a fictional crime story. The Blooding by Joseph Wambaugh is probably one of the best I've read, although my favorite author is Ann Rule.

Earlier this week, I was the coordinator for a fund-raiser for local literacy programs. The event was also a celebration of a friend's (Debby Peters) contributing authorship to a recently published business book (Masters of Sales). We set up interactive displays where we asked various questions related to others' literary preferences.

The question "What is your favorite genre?" elicited the following responses:

true crime
historical novels
classics
suspense
adventure
spiritual
business/leadership

Do you love to read? If so, what is your favorite genre?