On starting a blog - and some of my favourite books!

I love reading.  I have loved reading ever since I learned to read.  I have loved reading to the point where it has occasionally become detrimental - I've missed train stops, burned food, stayed up far too late at night, been late to all kinds of appointments, and annoyed various friends and strangers because I could not stop reading.  The primary focus of my 18 years of formal education - primary, secondary, tertiary - was English, and I am so lucky to now find myself working in the publishing industry, where I'm surrounded by books and book lovers every day.

I love writing.  I love playing with words, concepts, characters and meanings.  I love creating people and worlds and I love spinning emotions out of the air like yarn from moonlight.  Often I just enjoy tapping out words that sound nice together.  I have always written - stories, poetry, articles, reviews and opinions.  Sometimes it hurts, and sometimes it's healing, but it's as necessary to me as eating or sleeping.

I love pole dancing.  It's not something I could have imagined myself doing - if you told me ten years ago that one day most of my free time would be consumed by it, I would have laughed.  And I know that a majority of the population don't understand - or misunderstand - the appeal, and I've spent many hours attempting to justify it!  Pole dance has given me freedom, focus, and joy.  It's taught me to overcome the odds, or if I can't, to find ways around them.  It's introduced me to some truly amazing people who I feel blessed to call friends.  It's given me awesome arms and a hell of a lot of bruises!  And most importantly pole dance is helping me to become proud of who I am.

So I've finally decided to start a blog to share three of my great passions - reading, writing, and pole dancing.  I hope you enjoy reading it!

To get things rolling, here's a quick list of some of my absolute favourite books.  I'll be reviewing some of these in future posts.
The Dovekeepers by Alice Hoffman
The Lord of the Rings by JRR Tolkien
The Fault in Our Stars by John Green
The Boy on the Wooden Box by Leon Leyson
All in the Blue Unclouded Weather by Robin Klein
In the Shadow of the Banyan by Vaddey Ratner
The Milk of Birds by Sylvia Whitman
The Fantastic Flying Books of Mr Morris Lessmore by William Joyce
The Book Thief by Markus Zusak
Birdology by Sy Montgomery
The Rowland Sinclair series by Sulari Gentill
and many more to come...


with love from the lit dancer
artemis