I abandoned a lot of books in September.
I’m continuing to abandon them now. Just last night, I stopped reading a book 60 pages in to start reading another one. Last week, I was force to abandon the incredible Women Talking by Miriam Toews because of a due date at the library. I was 60 pages in on that one as well, a significant turn in the way I saw the book and how I processed the characters. But that’s this month. That’s another story altogether.
Read MoreThis is going to sound super cliché and the furthest thing from genuine, but I’ve missed this space. After writing a new blog post every Monday for months, I just stopped. It started as a pause. And then it became a habit. And now, six weeks in, I’m feeling that itch to check in again. Starting with the books I read in August feels like both a toe and a plunge. There were weeks at a time in August when I didn’t read, followed by days of binging page after page.
Read MoreThe majority of my reading for July was comics and graphic novels. It’s funny how things work out that way, even when you rely on the library for your reading material. Big Questions by Anders Nilsen arrived with plenty of time for our graphic novel book club meeting, but it was followed shortly after by both volumes of Skyward by Joe Henderson & Lee Garbett and The Best We Could Do by Thi Bui.
Read MoreThis last month was a roller coaster of reading. I read so many books quickly — within a couple of days, within 24 hours — and others took me weeks to get through. Sometimes reading is like that: a breeze, an uphill battle. That’s why I only write about books I love. Because the ones I don’t aren’t worth dwelling in.
Reading should be fun. That’s what I keep reminding myself. Reading should be fun.
Read MoreI only write about the books I genuinely love on here. When I first started blogging about books — back in 2010 on my Tumblr — I would write about every single book I ever read, whether I liked it or not. And then I discovered something incredible: I don’t have to spend any more time or brain space working through the books I don’t like. I’m making the rules about this practice — rules I can change. So in 2018, I stopped writing about the books I don’t enjoy reading. And it’s the best decision I’ve ever made.
Read MoreI heard the voice of every single one of these authors as I read their books.
Okay, not literally. But I spend a significant amount of time listening to these four voices. Linda Holmes is the host of one of my favorite podcasts: Pop Culture Happy Hour, a podcast I listened to long before I decided I was “into podcasts.” Her debut novel Evvie Drake Starts Over is dreamy and wonderful and exactly what I want all my rom coms and romance novels to be like.
Read MoreI’m currently in a reading slump. Okay, it’s probably not actually a reading slump. It’s probably that I’m not particularly excited about the book I’ve been reading this week — or I haven’t had enough time to read or I haven’t been able to read more than a chapter at a time because there’s too much good TV or or or. But then I look back on what I’ve read this month alone and I’m genuinely impressed with myself. Every single one of these four books was not only completely different from the last, they were also all books that I genuinely loved. (I read a couple of duds too. But I’m not here to talk about those books.
Read MoreHave you heard? I love to read.
When I was a kid, I thought I was getting away with something huge, reading by flashlight under the covers well past my bedtime — passing out from literary exhaustion at a time I would call “early” today. Over the summer, I’d read books in an entire day, prompting frequent trips to the library to get the next Animorphs book or the latest in The Baby-Sitters Club series.
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