11 Comments

I don't like the pressures that social media seems to put on how many books I should read. I follow several book pages on Facebook and every other post seems to be pictures of books people read for that month, or that week for that matter. I have two young boys that are currently home all day, so I do most of my reading after 11 PM when the only sounds around me are the creaks of the house settling. I read for pleasure. Currently next to my bed are We Begin At the End and Yours, Cheerfully. I have no idea if I'll finish them next week or next month, but I do know I'll thoroughly enjoy the silence while I read.

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Someone recently told me they set a New Years “intention” instead of a resolution. I’ve been thinking about that a lot in terms of how I approach everything. I can set an intention around what I read and how much I read without having to have a specific number I’m forcing myself to commit to. After all we’ve been through, I’m on board with the gentler path. :)

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I read so slowly I have never entered into any sort of formal challenge. But even seeing others reading as much as possible and posting about it gives me a weird mixture of anxiety, jealousy, and FOMO. I never know the IT book of the moment. I am still catching up on recommendations from decades ago! But I am fine with that. So much of my own reading lately has been research, and since I have been writing my own novels with such regularity, I find I don't have much mental space for fiction. I don't need any gold stars for reading books as an adult (and really, as a kid I didn't need external rewards for reading constantly either--I would have done it anyway).

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I have two books and a kindle on my nightstand. The one book is hard to read in the lower lighting - giving up on that one but it’s still on my nightstand. I haven’t tried reading the other one yet. It’s an Amanda Gorman book of poetry and I’m already savoring it without opening the pages. I’ll start on that one soon.

I recently finished a Tamora Pierce Tortall novel on the kindle. Took me months of reading a few pages at night. During 2020, I went back to old favorites that take me to a safe emotional place. I opened one of those a few nights ago and just couldn’t get into it.

I don’t know what I want from my reading. Life is hard enough right now with the Omicron surge, the pressures to go into work (I haven’t since mid-December), and the rescue menagerie we have now. Finding time and energy for reading or writing is challenging.

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Feb 3, 2022Liked by Nephele Tempest

I've used reading as my escape during the pandemic. I'd always been a fierce proponent of printed materials versus e-books, but with libraries closed, e-book downloads were a lifesaver. I've been keeping a yearly list of my books read for a long time and my totals skyrocketed after the first lockdown. I read 311 book in 2020 and set a goal of averaging once a day in 2021. I ended up with 402. One thing I've noticed is that I don't retain information from e-books as easily as I do from physical books unless the subject material is truly gripping. E-books are often the Pringles of reading: easy to consume, but not particularly nourishing. I'm not setting a goal this year. I suspect 402 will be lifetime high water mark. Some that really stood out off the top of my head are: Say Nothing and Empire of Pain by Patrick Radden Keefe, the Dublin Murder series by Tana French, The Truly Devious series by Maureen Johnson, The Splendid and the Vile by Erik Larson, They Called Us Enemy by George Takei, and the Toby Daye series by Seanan McGuire.

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May 14, 2022Liked by Nephele Tempest

I don't establish a goal. I just read. I'm fortunate to live within walking distance of a great library. We are fortunate to have so very many books to choose from here in the USA. You mention a mixture of books that "entertain and inform and force me to stretch my mind." I appreciate books that are well-written first of all, that hold my interest, and make me think. Not so very different. I'm a member of a "salon," a group of writers and friends of writers who got together over the spring to discuss George Saunders' A Swim In a Pond In the Rain. At the end of the book, we all offered recommendations of books we enjoyed for the other members to consider as summer reading. I've already chosen a book from the list and requested it from the library.

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