Book Club?

“If daily reading begins in infancy, by the time the child is 5 years old, he or she has been fed roughly 900 hours of  brain food! Reduce that experience to just 30 minutes a week, and the child’s hungry mind loses 770 hours of nursery rhymes, fairy tales and stories. A kindergarten student who has not been read to could enter school with less than 60 hours of literacy nutrition. No teacher, no matter how talented, can make up for those lost hours of mental nourishment.” (USDOE, 1999)

Have you ever heard the phrase “if you don’t use it you’ll loose it”? So if you do not use your skills, like reading. You may not loose your ability to read, but may struggle with higher literacy. Think about the brain food quote. If this is proven true think of all the educational hours we have lost. In CliffNotes I brought up the statistic that 25% of Americans will not read a single book in a year. After some thought on the matter I have decided I would personally like to change this.

As of today I am setting myself a personal goal to read as many books as I can by the end of the year. (20+) However, I do not only want to read the books, but I also want to find ways to interact with them. For example in high school I had found a few authors my friends and I really liked and we would take turns reading the books. One book I remember reading is The Perks of Being a Wallflower by Stephen Chbosky. While reading we would jot down our thoughts as side notes, and then pass the book on to a friend to read and add their thoughts. Finally after the book made it around the circle I would go back and reread the book. This was such a great experience, because every time reading was like reading a whole different book.

With all the hype over The Hunger Games movie what better book to start with then The Hunger Games by Suzanne Collins. What a great opportunity to read the book then watch the movie and be able to compare the two. My second book I would like to read is The Rum Diaries by Hunter S. Thompson. I have seen the movie and can not wait to read the book. Hunter S. Thomson is my journalist/writer hero and I would like to eventually read all of his works including: Fear and loathing in Las Vegas, Hell's Angels: The Strange and Terrible Saga of the Outlaw Motorcycle Gang, and Where the Buffalo Roam. I would also like to read The Perks of Being a Wallflower again to see how my thoughts have changed over the years. Those are only a few and I have a lot of catching up to do on my reading. So if anyone has any ideas for books I MUST read please let me know.

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