Greetings!

Good day! Salutations!  Hello there!  Hi!  Welcome!

Goodness.  After that display, I feel like King Azaz’s cabinet.  Which may not be entirely inaccurate.

The idea of this blog was birthed between two blogs.  The first being Sisters Lost in a Library, the book review blog I share with my older sister.  The second blog, The Stories Begun, is my writing blog and though it was helpful in this venture, it really was a specific entry that combined with Sisters to make this blog.

In said entry, called “Was it Reading or Anaesthetizing?”, I talked about how reading can do one of two things for me: broaden my experience or help me deal with excess stimuli, hence “reading” and “anaesthetizing.”  As a writer, the first is good, the second is undesirable at best.  So, to prevent myself from falling back into a bad habit I had gained in college (reading as an anaesthetic can be very helpful when classes get difficult), I made the goal to read one book a week this year that was clearly not an anaesthetic.  This blog is where I talk about my experience with those books.  Though I already have a review blog, this one is my personal experience learning to read again, the very act which taught me to love literature enough to want to study it in college.  I want to be awake in my library again, in the endless library that is this world.

So why did I chose the web address “storyandstrategyreviewsbyjoie.wordpress.com,” then?  The point of this blog is to be awake, yes?  Yes.  However, for as long as I can remember, I have taken a book to bed with me.  Where others had blankets and stuffed animals, I fell asleep with a book in hand.  True, I made room for the others in my bed, but the books were always nearest to my reach.

Most of my reading, certainly my most contemplative reading, is done in my bed.   That is the space where my endless library begins.  It is also the place where my day’s reading ends, as I am forced to lovingly tuck the book under my pillow, for I have woken up to the book falling from my hands to my chest once more.  In many ways, this is also where I leave my endless library, blithely zoning out with books that I should be tempering with better quality novels.

So,  this blog will document my experiment, my attempt to reclaim my bed.  The endless library is still there, always open.  Will you join me?

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P.S.  I’m a little late for the post a week challenge, but I’ll keep it as best I can from here on out, seeing as my reading goal coincides.