I read a lot of books. Rather I used to read a lot of books. You can ask my parents, I was the kid that would always have a book with me: at the dinner table, while watching tv, in the car. I even had a book light so I could continue reading as we were driving home, from wherever.

In the past couple of years the books I used to carry around have been replaced by my smart phones and the literature now consists of blogs, tweets and Facebook. Another tech reason that I haven’t been reading as many books? My mom got a Kindle, and until recently (thank you Kindle App for my iPad) I wasn’t able to share books with her anymore, which was my main source of literature.

Over Christmas and New Years I read 4 books, all while lounging at the pool, on my iPad! It was fantastic, despite the glare at times (but it made for some good photos like the one above). My vocabulary is already expanding to words that are rarely tweeted or used in status updates.

Below are the books I read over the holiday, and I would love any other suggestions.

Book 1: Bite Me: A Love Story by Christopher Moore

When I had tonsillitis in September I read another one of Christopher Moore’s books, Bloodsucking Fiends, which is a humorous book about becoming a vampire in modern day San Francisco. Bite Me was a good follow up, about vampires (more specifically vampire cats) taking over San Fran, but I just did not enjoy it as much as Bloodsucking Fiends. While it wasn’t my favorite, I would still recommend him as an author and I would read another one of his vampire books.

Book 2: Plan B by Jonathan Tropper

I have said this before on Twitter, many times, but I absolutely love everything that Jonathan Tropper has written. The first book of his that I read was This Is Where I Leave You which is about a family who sits shiva after the father of the family passes. Plan B is about a group of high school and college friends who conspire to kidnap their friend who is a huge hollywood star that develops a coke habit, in order to force him into kicking the habit. All of Tropper’s books have a similar plot line: single, middle aged man is going through some sort of mid-life crisis. Despite the similarities in his books, they are all very well written and different enough that you do not feel like you are reading the same story difference location.

Book 3: Room by Emma Donoghue

Room was a fascinating read about a woman who gets kidnapped when she is 19, is forced to live in a storage shed, where she is forced to have sex with her kidnapper and eventually has a baby boy. The book is written from the perspective of the little boy and his view of the world: the room. This is not based on any true story, thank goodness, but I am sure Emma took some of the horror stories regarding kidnapping into consideration.

Book 4: Life by Keith Richards

Ok, I admit it. I didn’t finish all 4 books in Mexico. I am still in the process of reading this one, but in my defense, it is almost 600 pages long! This has been my favorite book so far, and I really wish it had come out earlier. When I was attending CU Denver, I had to take a full year of music history and reading through Keith Richards’ memory is much more interesting than any textbook I had available to me.

Reading about the early rock and roll scene makes me wish that the industry was still as open and friendly as it was back then. Unlikely musicians were friends, they all shared music with each other openly, and it really was all about the music. Trying to come up with a different way to play a chord, or adding your own style to a popular song, or even just simply trying to introduce audiences to different styles of music.  Any music lover should read this book, and hopefully more musicians will read it and strive to bring back the authenticity to popular music (yea right, but I can wish can’t I?).

So those are the 4 books that made me realize how much I enjoy reading and how I hope to read many more in the coming months and year (but don’t call it a resolution). Please let me know what good books you have read recently so I can continue expanding my vocabulary.