List: What Mandy Loves About Reading

Books have always been my mother's escape of choice.  As any daughter to this type of mother does, this daughter grows up interacting with books more than friends.  Even though I'm considered a "grown up" now, I'm still a sucker for books (although the Netflix and the YouTubes drags me to screens more than pages nowadays).

In order to get myself back into reading this fall, here is a list of what I love about it, whether it be holding the words or hearing them:

• There's something for everybody at any reading level, in every language, all over the world.  So many genres, so many books, so many ways to get them, and so little time for it all.

• Your imagination is the driver.  Movies and television visually guide you through what their creator's deam right for the story line, but books give you the steering wheel.  Each book is imagined differently with each reader no matter how descriptive it gets.  Hats off to your brain!

• There are multiple ways to get the same experience, ie physical books, eBooks, and audiobooks.  Get something to hold at a library or bookstore, or download a file to listen to or swipe away the pages on your tablet or eReader.

• I can read multiple books at a time, as long as I have a system.  Well law-de-freaking-daw for you people who can read multiple books of the same type at once.  I can do one plot-driven storyline along with one self-help and one light read, but that's as far as my brain will let me go before I need to put one down and peddle through the others.

• The more I read, the more I want to write.  The inspiration I get from a good book to want to write one of my own is something I can only get from reading.  Nothing gets me back to my stories faster.

• It's my original escapism.  Before I decided writing was a way to control something in my life when everything around me seemed uncontrollable, my little introverted self would burrito into the covers with a faint light above my head and read as much of the day or night away as I could just so I could step into another world away from my own and anybody else's influence.

(For those wondering what those books are in the photo, I have my two current reads: "Viva la Repartee" by Dr. Mardy Grothe as the hardcover on the right, and the Kindle on the left has "Mayhem: Mayhem #1" by Jamie Shaw displayed.)