Last night as I was going to sleep, I suddenly remembered that I had a book that was supposed to be reviewed around now. This morning I checked my emails to make sure I hadn’t missed the review date, and thankfully it’s still a few days away. That prompted a flurry of activity though, where I ran here and there and gathered all the books I have for reviewing, that I haven’t yet read.

My wonderfully proficient method of keeping track of the books I’ve received for review is to slap a sticky note on the cover with the name of who gave me the book (Litfuse, Tyndale Publishing, Moody Press, an author, etc…). Then either the date that the review is supposed to go live, or if there’s not a specific deadline, then the date I received the book in the mail (so I know my priorities).

As I was gathering the books this morning, I realized that they’d once again piled up. I currently have thirteen books that should be reviewed between Monday and the end of August. I’m not even sure how many more books are on the way, because so many interesting titles keep popping up in my inbox begging me to review them. (I might or might not have signed up for another book this morning while sorting through emails to figure out which publishing companies sent which books.)

In addition to the books to review, books keep pouring in from other locations:

• I have a stack of ten library books next to my chair
• I’ve read five books this month from Overdrive (e-books from the library)
• I signed up for several different author and publisher newsletters which supplied a whole slew of free kindle books; like, eight from just this past week. I’ve even begun deleting some of the emails without reading them. But, come to think of it, ebooks don’t take up any space, and if they’re free and look interesting? Well, I might as well go and download four more….
• And to top it all off, I splurged and bought several books. (Because I highly recommend supporting authors by buying books – no matter how many you can get for free.)

Having this many books at my fingertips makes me feel incredibly rich. It amazes me how we live in an age where books are freely accessible to so many people. Instead of laboriously hand copying each book, we can mass-produce them. We don’t even have to print them any more – people can read books electronically. (And we have electricity! Just take a moment to ponder that.)

And speaking of wonders, I’m off to clean the house while listening to an audio book. How cool is that?

Where do you get most of the books you read?