I thought this was going to be a piece in which I gleefully recount my exploits as a book quitter. I say “gleefully” because I heartily advocate reading the books we want to read. Outside the context of school or work requirements, reading isn’t a responsibility to anyone but oneself. So no one is obligated to …
Continue reading “I thought I was book quitter until I checked the stats”
A funny reader moment happened to me last week when I got together with one of my favorite cousins. “I remember how you used to devour books,” he said, as we reminisced about our childhood. “You’d carry around these big books. I’d ask you how far along you’d gotten, and you’d say, ‘I finished it.’” I have no recollection …
With my annual summer relocation happening this week, I’m behind. I could let it go and plan to catch up next week. But I won’t. It’s like with working out: If I let myself go one week, it’ll be too easy to let it go the next one. And the next one after that. So my …
Continue reading “Wednesday reading roundup (on Thursday): July 14”
Doomsday prophesies aren’t just a bookish pet peeve. As a general rule, I’m frustrated by fear mongering – promoting the idea that we’re traveling down a slippery slope of ultimate human suffering and destruction from which we can never recover. *Cue ominous music* Suffering and destruction are realities of human existence. No doubt about that. …
Continue reading “Reading Pet Peeve #3: Doomsday Prophesies”
Reading Nina George’s The Little Paris Bookshop earlier this month got me thinking about my relationship with French literature. Which is perhaps best summarized as, “It’s complicated.” Nothing distills complex, at times ambivalent, at times frustrating, at times enchanting emotional responses quite like a GIF. Am I right? Let’s begin!
Growing up a voracious reader, I was drawn to books both for the beauty of the stories and language and for their power to transport and change me. I mean “transport” in two ways. Books transport me to different times and places, and they transport me out of my self. While reading, I enter another’s …
Happy new month, readers! My May reading goal was to smash my stack. I haven’t so much smashed as gently nudged it. To be fair, though, it’s a gargantuan stack. On the plus side, I promised to read at least 80 percent of my own books this month, and I exceeded that goal. I read 10 …
Continue reading “The unabridged list of what I read in May”
I had so much fun providing a Wednesday reading roundup last week that I’ve decided to make it a regular thing. Thank you, once again, to Taking on a World of Words and Coffee and Cats for the idea! Since I’m doing the May Smash Your Stack challenge, as part of the Read My Own Damn Books …
A few months ago, I wrote about three ways to shake up your book club with new approaches, inspired by my numerous and varied failed book club attempts. My current book club operates on the traditional “let’s all read the same book” principle. Still, I can think of many groups I’ve participated in that might have survived if …
Continue reading “Four (more) alternatives to a traditional book club”
Happy hump day reading! Taking on a World of Words is hosting this fun meme, which I first discovered at Coffee and Cats. It asks three simple but ever alluring questions: What are you currently reading? What did you recently finish reading? What do you think you’ll read next? They’re alluring questions because … because … oh …
