Calendars, Books, and Shoes

I really do have fabulous friends.  Today I opened the mailbox and  (with quite a lot of tugging and yanking, remind me to have a chat with our mailman) pulled out this:

The hubby saw it on the coffee table when he got home and said, "books, not shoes?  That's just not right."  The card that came with the gift also indicated that books were not my greatest passion.  I have to say that I write a blog about shoes because they are fun and pretty and silly, but books are, always have been, and always will be my bigger passion.  I love to read.  LOVE IT.  I can pass up shoes, but it is really hard not to buy most of the books I see.

True story!  I can be stubborn about books and will often read something long after I should have given up because it was just not a good fit.  Books are my escape, and if I'm escaping somewhere I hate, why bother?

How perfect are these?  Shoes, a stack of books, and cup of yummy tea?  Sounds like a perfect winter day.  So.  Books and shoes.  Instead of finding pictures online, I decided to create my own tonight.  Here are some of my favorite books and some of my favorite shoes.  You've seen all the shoes already, but you'll just have to deal with it.  Or you know, stop reading.  Utilize your free will.

Harry Potter.  Duh.   I've read the entire series many many times.  If you don't like Harry Potter then I'm just not sure I want to be friends with you.

The Percy Jackson series.  I only included the box set of the first series, but I love the Heroes of Olympus series as well.  Definitely a fan of the fantasy.

2 sets of books from my childhood that I then bought as an adult, Little House on the Prairie and The Chronicles of Narnia.  I was obsessed with Little House, and even dressed up like Laura for Halloween one year.  I didn't read the Narnia books until I was older, then I bought the box set while I was on internship.  I think it was Prince Caspian that I read in its entirety in the bathtub one night.

I first started reading The Hunger Games trilogy a few months after I moved to California the second time.  I was going through a major bout of depression from the transition and initially hated the first book.  It took me forever to get into it.  Then I got completely sucked in on a flight home to Montana and devoured the series.

I have a love/hate with this series.  I discovered it in High School and was obsessed.  I was like a drug dealer and would push it on my friends to get them addicted also.  There's time travel, so fantasy.  There are hot men, so yay.  There are hot SCOTTISH men, so even more yay.  As you can see, the paperbacks are definitely the worse for wear.  The blue one is actually the second copy since I pretty much destroyed the first.  And then the woman kept writing.  The 8th book just came out in June and she's still not done.  If she would stop describing everything in so much freaking detail and just get to the point, there would be half the pages and twice the plot.  There are now way too many character, way too much time between books, way too much everything.  But I keep reading because I eventually want closure.  It's been over 20 years and she's still keeping me dangling.  The BFF and I refer to the author simply as "that damn woman."  I could probably write the length of one of those books about all of my ups and downs with this series, but I won't.  Deep breath.  Moving on.

There are more than 20 books in this series, so I just grabbed a few instead of trying to fit them all into a picture with a shoe.  These books are hilarious and also involve  hot men.  2 of them.  Total love triangle.  They have gotten a bit formulaic in the process, but I still keep tuning in because they are perfect escape reading and I like to fantasize about Ranger.  Mmmmm...Ranger.   Yeah, deep breath.  

I love shoes.  But I looooooove books.  These are such a tiny fraction of the books I've read and loved.  I can't go to sleep unless I read, even if it's only for 5 minutes.  And these are just the fiction ones.  Some of my favorite theological books are currently packed away in the garage.  Maybe there will be another post.  Now if you'll excuse me, I need to stop typing and start reading.