My Kindle Bookshelf

Did you know I was an English literature major in college? I love to read. I love to study books, sure, and my lit classes were some of my favorites (much more than my music classes, actually), but I mostly just love the act of reading. I fly through books for the pure enjoyment of it, rarely remembering too much of what I've read, but never terribly concerned about that fact.

However. I think I've probably read three good works of literature in the last five years. I hear about people who make time to read and I think -- when? how is that even possible? And don't give me the "I always bring a book so I can read when I'm waiting at the doctor's office or while I'm picking my kids up from gymnastics" line. We don't go to the doctor that often (and when we do, I'm managing my brood of toddlers). We don't do extra curricular activities yet, except for Levi's piano lessons, and that doesn't involve waiting (and, again, DOES involve the toddlers). I don't want to hear about reading before bed, either. First, that's probably the only ten minutes I might actually get to talk to my husband all day long, if I'm even awake enough for that. Second, if I'm reading a good book, I'll never go to bed at all. I am hopeless when it comes to the "just one more chapter" phenomenon. 

However. When I'm nursing a newborn, I have to do something, or else I'll fall asleep and drop the baby, or be totally bored out of my mind. (With one kid, I tried to pray while I was up at night, but that just led to more falling asleep.) I play a lot of Sudoku on the Kindle Fire, but that gets boring after a while, too. It's a great opportunity to read, really, but I find myself in the aforementioned dilemma: if I read something interesting at 2am, I'll find myself still awake and finishing the book three hours later. I can't afford to lose sleep on good literature right now.

The solution: I read bad literature. What qualifies as "bad literature," you ask? In my humble opinion, the perfect middle-of-the-night reading is (cue drum roll): cheesy Christian fiction. I have no problems turning off the Kindle in the middle of the chapter when I'm reading something so utterly enticing as The Lawman Claims His Bride or Waiting for Summer's Return. (Oh man, that one was a doozy. I actually laughed out loud and woke up Isaac when I discovered in the first sentence that Summer was the name of the heroine.) I explained this theory to my brother a few weeks ago, and he laughingly pointed out that I didn't even have to worry about getting all worked up over the romance in Christian fiction, because things never get too steamy.

Where do I find these gems? Free Kindle downloads on Amazon, baby. Isaac gets a daily e-mail with the free Kindle books of the day, and he sends anything that looks like it might fit my chosen genre straight to the Kindle for download. It's always a treat to turn it on in the evening and see what new delights await.

There is, however, a flaw with my "get books for free" plan. It turns out that all of these aspiring Christian romance writers prefer to write whole series of books. When a subsequent book of the series gets published, they make the first book available for free to draw attention. So almost every single book I've read in the last month has been the first of the series, and I can't get any more than the first book for free. Most of the time it hasn't mattered; the stories resolve within the first book well enough that I'm not left wondering what might happen in the future. One of the series, I managed to find available for Kindle download from the library. I'm afraid I'll never find out whether Jessielynn is able to save her racing horses, though, or whether anyone will find out that Katie and Mayme are running the plantation on their own (gasp)! (I hope you can hear me laughing on this side of the computer.)

As long as I'm baring my embarrassing secrets, here, I'll also admit that I've been reading a Dee Henderson series, borrowed from the library. "Dee Henderson?" my mom asks. "Isn't she like a step down from Karen Kingsbury?" (If you know these names, you'll laugh. If you don't, don't worry about it.) My favorite part about reading this stuff, as opposed to period literature (Civil War, settling the Dakota territories, etc.), is how obviously dated it is: when the phrase "cellular telephone" is never, ever abbreviated, for example, and the heroine is always wearing white shorts and a ponytail, you know you've struck 1990s gold.

I tell you what, that right there is great stuff for 3am. Seriously.