I have always loved to read.  My sisters used to tease me with a sing-song call and response they based on a real conversation:

Where is Lois?  Under the bed.  What is she doing?  Reading a book.

I still love to read, but the quantity and quality of my reading has changed in recent years.  My job required me to read a lot of necessary but otherwise uncompelling material for content and analysis, which tends to slow down reading speed.  I stopped subscribing to a newspaper, and now read Internet news and opinion – not a bad thing at all, but it’s taking up a disproportionate amount of my reading time.  Light reading like mysteries, cute books about animals and short-form history pretty much take up the rest of my reading time.  I want to get some more challenging, engaging books back into the mix, and since I recently retired from my job with U.S. Foreign Service, I now have more time to read.

Another result of my Foreign Service career:  my writing style changed drastically to accommodate the requirements of my job.  As concise as possible, lots of headers and bullets, done with effort and close attention to detail.  I’d like to get back to writing with more ease and more joy, still getting the details right, but putting more of myself into what I write.

I recently finished unpacking and sorting many boxes of books accumulated over the last four decades, before and during my years with the U.S. Department of State.  I haven’t seen many of the books for years, and I’m looking forward to rereading the many books I enjoyed in the past: history, biography, novels, plays, poetry, linquistics and grammar, as well as favorite mysteries, books about nature and animals, and autobiographies.   I also sorted out a lot of books to donate or otherwise discard.

Where does the revolving bookcase come in?  I put some favorite books into a revolving bookcase I bought about 20 years ago, which has been with me on every assignment on five different continents.  I also added some new/unread books; all the books in the revolving bookcase are high on the list of books to reread or read.  There are a lot of books in other bookcases that I can pick out to read.  I have a Kindle, which holds several unread books, I have a library card and make frequent trips to the library, and of course there are many interesting books to buy in real book form, or as eBooks.  I will write about my reading experiences as I progress with my plan to increase and improve my reading repertory.  I have my Webster’s Dictionary at hand to spell the words in my expanded vocabulary.  But I can’t guarantee that some headers and bullet points won’t creep in. 

I may also post about other interests in my new retired life:  gardening, traveling, and sewing.  I have books to help me with those interests too.  Movies will be mentioned frequently.  Of course, posts about my pets could come up too.