Bibliodiversidade - Reading Diversely

Two women reading on a verandah at Ingham, QLD, ca. 1894-1903. I was not able to write a post about the March reads in time, so I am joining two months into one post, March and April. I read 3 books in March: The Tailor of Panama | John le Carré (UK): this was quite an enjoyable read, even though spying and international intrigue are not among my favourite genres. But I had this book lying around for too long and decided I had to read it before letting it go again through Bookcrossing , which is where it came from. One of the things I found very interesting is how the core of the story remains so up-to-date: intelligence services from developed countries looking for new purposes by messing around in the third world, a small lie becoming bigger and bigger until it is appropriated by those services/governments and the media as a means to justify a military invasion... As my reading progressed, I had the creepy notion I already knew the story, and it was not from the movi...

Written World by Rob Gonsalves I was talking with my daughter the other day about dreams and nightmares and at some point we started discussing our favourite dreams - you know, those that leave you disappointed when you wake up because they were being so good. It was then that I realised that some of my best dreams are related with books. There is this one where I am in downtown Lisbon, wandering inside one of those ancient buildings that used to host big stores selling textiles, dress fabrics and knitting yarns, where I often went with my mother when I was a child. The only difference is that in my dream, the fabrics, yarns and all the rest have been replaced by... books! Endless wooden shelves filled with books disposed in a sort of labyrinth, that leave me in complete awe! I start browsing through the titles and find books I have read long ago, books that I used to love but at some point have lost, or others that I have been longing to read for years. There is this other dream ...

I have two children, aged 10 and 13 and I have been reading to them since they were babies. They have grown up watching me read whenever I have a spare moment: during breakfast, while waiting on lines, in the bathroom, while cooking (yes, it is possible and no, people don't usually complain about my cooking abilities...). My house is filled with books, in fact, there isn't a single room in the house where you can't find at least a few. I've been taking the children to the library since they were toddlers. They were both homeschooled until fourth grade and learned to read by themselves. Even after they became proficient readers, I never stopped reading to them whenever they asked me. All this to say that they should both love to read, right? Well, not really. While the youngest one loves books to the point that I sometimes have to take them from her so that she can finish breakfast in time not to miss school, the oldest one is completely different. Months can go by wi...

I must say that as much as minimalism appeals to me, I am still a long way from managing to apply it to books. Don't get me wrong, I don't plan to read less, on the contrary. But I do want  to accumulate less. That is why I regularly donate books to my local library and I am an active bookcrosser (if you don't know what Bookcrossing is, you can check it out here ). This being said, I obviously keep buying books on a regular basis - in fact, this is one of the few sorts of shopping I like to do... But I am also a big library user and I frequently lend and borrow books from friends and family - especially my mum, who was the one who passed the book bug on to me! These are the new entries on my TBR (To Be Read) list during the first trimester of the year, a total of 16 books (the photo shows only 15, as one is an e-book): A Rainha Ginga | José Eduardo Agualusa (Angola) - received as a gift Caderno Afegão | Alexandra Lucas Coelho (Portugal) - borrowed Uma Escuridão ...