Outside of a dog, a book is man's best friend. Inside of a dog it's too dark to read.

~Grouch Marx

Once upon a time I was an English major. (as in literature, not grammar. Just throwing that out there so maybe, maybe, jparks will finally shut up when I miss a comma.) During this time I was also a bookstore employee, so it's safe to say that I enjoy reading. It's also safe to say that I enjoy lemon squares with a light dusting of powdered sugar, but that's off topic. I've got a pretty diverse palate when it comes to books; I enjoy all types of fiction, children's lit, biographies, nonfiction, and the occasional trashy romance novel (kidding. I'm just not into heaving bosoms. Well, other than jparks'). But lately, when I look at my overflowing bookshelf, nothing appeals to me.

It's like I'm experiencing some kind of reverse writer's block, a reader's block, if you will. Jparks and I are both in the habit of buying books as soon as we see them, instead of buying them when we are ready to read them, so I have a large back stock of things that I know I wanted to read at some point in the past, but not so much right now.

I think the reader's block is growing from really missing the reading assignments that were given by my English professors. I attended a "classics" high school so a lot of the books and authors we read in my college classes were new to me and I instantly fell in love with many of them. I was the student that bought my books before the semester had even started (the professors always posted the book lists on their doors) and would try to plow through as many of the novels as possible before the start of class so I would have a good base for rereading during the semester.

Yes, I was a dorky teacher's pet, why do you ask?

Anyway, the point of this meandering post was that I'm wondering if you've read anything good lately that you might want to tell me about. It doesn't have to be fine literature, it can be crap fluff literature and I won't judge. Or it can be nonfiction, I'm an equal opportunity reader. Maybe it's not something that you've read lately, but your favorite book that you can reread and never tire of. Oooh, or do you have copies of your college English class syllabuses that you want to share? Come on, stop bogarting the authors and share with the rest of the class.