The man who does not read is no better than the man who can't. - Mark Twain

Thanks to my parents’ influence I grew up with a love of reading, wet Sunday afternoons (of which there are many in England) were spent either reading or playing Monopoly and even now part of my bedtime routine is reading. N°4 on my list is to read 40 books over the next 18 months. To some people it may seem a lot but as I’m already halfway through my second book, this will probably be the easiest goal to complete. For me reading is almost as essential as breathing and I like to alternate between reading fiction and non-fiction, one for one. In the same way as I am with music, I don’t get bound up by genre. So Austin and Dickens stand along-side Val McDermid, le Carré and Salman Rushdie on my fiction bookcase (there are even a couple of trashy romances by Rosamunde Pilcher) and my other bookcase is even more varied!

My list starts off with books I’m currently reading (or have read)

1.            Pathway to Purpose - Katie Brazelton

2.            Captivating – Stacy Eldredge

3.            The Mark of the Assassin – Daniel Silva

Part 2 are books I already own but haven’t read yet:

4.            The Grace Awakening – Charles Swindoll

5.            Hope Again – Charles Swindoll

6.            Simple Faith – Charles Swindoll

7.            Living your strengths – Winseman/Clifton/ Liesveld

8.            Love and War – John & Stasi Eldredge

9.            Twelve Extraodinary Women –John MacArthur

10.         O2 – Richard Dahlstrom

11.         My Donkey Body – Michael Wenham

12.         God’s Call – Brother Andrew

13.         Wilberforce, God’s Statesman – Biography by John Pollock

14.         Crazy Love – Francis Chan

15.         Having a Mary heart in a Martha World – Joanna Weaver

Part 3 of my list is books I want to read, some taken from other “books to read before you die” lists and are all on my Amazon wish list (hint hint).

16.         A House for Mr. Biswas - V.S. Naipaul

17.         A Long Walk to Freedom – Nelson Mandela

18.         Love in the Time of Cholera – Gabriel García Márquez

19.         I Know Why the Caged Bird Sings – Maya Angelou

20.         Bright Lights, Big City - Jay McInerney

21.         The Adventures of Peregrine Pickle - Tobias Smollett

22.         The Kite Runner - Khaled Hosseini

23.         The God of Small Things - Arundhati Roy

24.         Running with Giants – John Maxwell

And that leaves 16 empty spaces, so I’m looking for your recommendations, plus, if you can loan me the book, even better J