I can't decide whether I should just call it as a blogger or attempt to make some kind of go of it.

So far, I have made very little progress in making such a decision. 

Then again, this year I've made very little progress at anything but raising my blood pressure to dangerous limits for a non-smoking 27 year old and sharpening an admittedly sharp tongue on my loved ones. Ah, that first year of teaching . . . but that's a horror story for another time.

The winter break has provided me with some needed relief valves. Sleep. Eating more than half a meal a day. No children throwing things at me, cussing me out, grabbing me, or screaming in my face. 

Perhaps the most important part of my return to some normalcy has been the ability to lay on my couch, pull a throw over me, sip a mug of Blood Pressure Tea, and read a book. 

Yes. Read. A. Book.

Having just finished  The Ronin's Mistress, the latest in the perenially well-done and I say entralling Sano Ichiro series by Laura Joh Rowland, I have eagerly dived into The Hare With The Amber Eyes, a Salon-recommended family memoir.

As I have only finished the prologue, I will have to keep my posts updated. 

With this renewed relationship with books - the most enduring in my life - my eyes wander to my little sunroom. When I tear my eyes from the trees beyond the windows, I see the brimming book cases, stacks mounded on top of them. They sit, silent and a little forlorn.

There are the books that I have not gotten around to reading.

Some of them have been there for years.

They would accuse me but then what book in this age of iPad, iPod, iPhone, Kindle, Brindle, and Ember wants to piss off a potential reader?

Some were gifts, proudly presented in wrapping paper. 

Others I picked up for a token sum at book fairs.

A few were even once on the Take-A-Book shelves of Metra Stations from my ill-spent year in West Chicagoland.

That's not to say many aren't well worn and well loved. Had they faces, they would smile and tell the unread stacks, "She's really quite lovely. She loves our stories and reads us again and again."

The unread stacks would mutter back, "We wouldn't know."

So, this year, to some the last year of the world (where have we heard that before, I wonder?) I will do my best to read and review five of my unread books a month. I've tried projects before and never quite succeeded. 

To be fair, I didn't have as much escapist incentive before.

But, if this year of unrelenting work and worry has taught me nothing else, it is this: Escape while you can. The work and worry will always be waiting. A book will take you far away and always be there to take you again when you have to come back.

So, the five reads for January are:

1) The Hare With The Amber Eyes by Edmund DeWaal

2)Dear Theo by Vincent Van Gogh, edited by Irving Stone with Jean Stone

3)The People's Act of Love by : James Meek

4) The Sari Shop Widow b: Shobhan Bantwal

5)  A Map of The World by: Jane Hamilton

Some of these may become well-loved friends. Others, well, there's a reason Paperbackswap.com exists. 

Only time and the breadth of my commitment this month will tell.

Stay tuned . . .