By my bedside...

By my bedside is ALWAYS and without fail a pile of books.

Sometimes quite a strange mix of books, but always lots.

I need to read like I need to breathe. It has been the one true constant in my life.

I use reading for therapy, escape, relaxation, laughter, learning.....

This week I've finished: The Little Coffee Shop of Kabul

See it here, via Booktopia

An absolutely beautiful book that made me cry with heartbreak, but also challenged and inspired me.

The startlingly different stories of five women who meet at a coffee shop in Kabul, itself a world away from my life and experience. Written beautifully, and while dealing with some confronting things at times, it never makes you want to pull back.

Thanks to my mum for giving it to me, it was worth the late nights!

I'm currently reading:

The Minutes of the Lazarus Club by Tony Pollard

Find it on Amazon

This one was picked up on a whim as I was about to leave the library, and yet is the one I'm enjoying most so far.

Set in London in 1857, amid some of the biggest social and industrial changes of the Victorian era, and written in the first person through the eyes of Dr George Phillips, a new member of the Lazarus Club which includes the likes of Charles Darwin and his contemparies.

I'm finding it extremely well written and hard to stop reading at times. Detailed, but not enough to bore me into putting it down. Although I do think I will need a lesson in history as there are so many industrial milestones that have fascinated me and I wamt to find out more!

What I have lined up next:

I Shall Wear Midnight by Terry Pratchett

Random House - find it here

Along with it's predecessor Wintersmith.

I Shall Wear Midnight is the latest in the Tiffany Aching novels, set in the Discworld, and written for teens, but I'm a Discworld junkie, and who could not feel brighter after a dose of the Mac Nac Feegles?

I may have to fight Tiger to get first read of this one, as she is very pointedly watching the mailbox these school holidays in the hope she gets to it first!

If you have no idea what I'm talking about, get thee to a library and read thee some Discworld! Life is not complete without it!

What's by your bedside this week?