Books are like friends – you only need a few good ones to make you happy!  Despite me being a techno junkie I have not taken to Kindle reading like so many of my friends.  I want to get to know my books intimately – touch them, page them, and refer back to certain paragraphs to recall later.  I want to take my book out for coffee, carry it from the lounge to the bedroom.  I don’t buy books I adopt them and get to know them well. There is nothing I appreciate as much as I appreciate the gift of a book – new or second hand, current or ancient.  Once read I want to discuss my experience with other book lovers and compare notes.  Then there is also the constant search for “the next one”.  After putting one book down I need to have the next one lined up because this girl can’t go without some pages.

“I am Malala” about the life of a Pakistani girl who is a passionate activist for equal opportunity education is my latest conquest and it was also a “hand me down” from a good friend.  Considering the price that this book goes for new I was even more delighted that I managed to get to read this book without paying a cent – a double gift in a way.  Given what Malala Yousafzai has gone through campaigning for schooling and then getting shot by the Taliban made this gift even better.  This might have been the book that got away has it not landed in my hands for free.  Malala has another fan, one more person who thinks she is brave and courageous.  Malala’s biography is exactly the reason I love books – books help me to discover, takes me to places where I have not been and might not ever go, introduce me to people, teaches me.  Give me a book and I am content – pure bliss – me and my books.