If you cannot read all your books, at any rate handle... them - peer into them, let them fall open where they will, read the first sentence that arrests the eye, set them back on the shelves with your own hands, arrange them with your own plan... Let them be your friends.  Let them at any rate be your acquaintances.  If they cannot enter the circle of your life, do not deny them at least a nod of recognition.
                    - Winston Churchill

A quick note on my stories:

The adventures of Shan and of Kinga (and perhaps more to come) are written to be short, stand-alone stories, part of a much bigger world.  They are an exploration of how side characters - in the most literal sense of the word - can affect a story even when they only nibble at the edges, almost imperceptibly so.  As in life, the small actions of others who we do not know, nor ever will know, impact us in ways we cannot comprehend.  These characters are meant to explore that concept.  Their stories are written more for myself than for consumption by an audience, but, if anyone reading them enjoys them, all the better.