Happy Friday, friends! I have a really excellent weekend ahead of me and I’m excited to kick it off with a low-key Friday at home.
For today’s Five for Friday post, I thought I’d make it a themed one: all about some bookish topics that have been floating around in my brain. Let’s dive in:
1) About once a year, I get the itch to trim down my TBR list on Goodreads. Earlier this week, my TBR list had over 375 books on it and it was stressing me out. Honestly, a part of me just wanted to delete every book on that list and start fresh, but I worry that I would regret taking such drastic action. My other thought is to trim down the list to just 100 books, and I’m actively trying to get there (I’m currently at 221 books—not sure how I’m going to remove another 120 books!) I don’t know how everyone uses their Goodreads to-be-read list. For me, it’s an important part of my book selection process, but I feel like all the books I really want to read are getting lost in the 300-odd other books that were cluttering up my TBR. I want to be more intentional about the books I add to my TBR. We’ll see if that’s possible, though. There are so many shiny new releases that I want to read and older books that other people rave about that I want to be sure I get around to someday. The plight of a bookworm!
2) I’ve long identified as someone who reads a lot. I read at least triple of what people in my book club read, and they are very much bookworms like me. When I lamented to them last month that I might only read 8 books in July, they looked at me like I was crazy. (“Is that bad? I don’t think I’ve ever read 8 books in a month! I’m happy if I can get to four.”) I’ve felt a shift happening in my reading life, where I don’t feel as if I have to read at such a frenetic pace anymore. And it’s causing me to have a bit of an identity crisis, to be honest. If I’m not the girl who reads 2-3 books per week, then who am I as a person? Am I really a bookworm if I’m not checking off books left and right? (The answers: I’m still the me I’ve always been and YES OF COURSE DON’T BE RIDICULOUS.)
It’s almost as if I’m at a fork in the road of my readerly life. On one side is allowing myself the space to do what feels good and if reading less is what feels good, then I should do that. On the other side is finding creative ways to add reading time back into my life. And because I’m still very much married to my readerly identity, I’m choosing the latter. Which brings me to my next point.
3) Here’s the thing: Everyone can make time for reading, but not everyone does. And right now, I’m not making time for it as much as I was in the past. So, I got to thinking about how I could make more time for reading and the idea came to me pretty instantaneously: reading days! The idea for reading days is that I’ll pick out 1-2 days per week, based on my schedule, and aim to read for at least 2 hours on that day (any reading I do before bed doesn’t count, since that’s already an ingrained habit). I can split up the reading anyway I want (maybe 30 minutes in the morning, 30 minutes on my lunch break, and an hour when I’m done with work), but I must commit to at least 2 full hours (more if I can fit it in!) I already did a reading day on Wednesday and it was so pleasant. I did a half-hour during a morning work break, 15 minutes during an afternoon work break, and then an hour and fifteen minutes when I finished with work. (And then I got in some extra reading time before bed!) Today will be the second reading day of the week and I am so looking forward to it!
(And that, of course, is the key. If these reading days ever feel like a chore, then I’ll stop doing them. For now, they feel really fun!)
4) On an episode of Book Talk Etc, the hosts had a really interesting discussion about their reading life and the books they’ve read during the first half of 2021. It got me thinking about my own reading journey in 2021! Most especially, looking back at how I’ve rated books this year. This hasn’t felt like a sensational reading year for me for some reason; I feel like I’ve rated a lot of books 3 stars. In looking at the stats, I’ve rated 35% of my books 3 stars or lower, and 65% were given 4- or 5-star ratings. I don’t know if this is normal for me or not (I’d have to look back at previous years and I don’t feel like doing that right now), but one of the hosts had a similar percentage to me and seemed aghast at her percentage (meanwhile, the other host had only given 18% of her books 3 stars or lower). I know I’m a bit more critical of books than other people, and I don’t want to give a book 4 or 5 stars unless I really liked it and would recommend it. So maybe that’s why? I don’t know but I’m hoping that the second half of 2021 brings me a lot more 4- and 5-star reads.
5) Speaking of the first half of 2021, why don’t we play a fun game of my top three reads of the year so far? This was actually supremely hard to narrow down, so I’m going to give a few honorable mentions:
- Kindred by Octavia E. Butler is most definitely my favorite read of the year, and I read it in January. Nothing has come close to knocking it from its top spot!
- When They Call You a Terrorist: A Black Lives Matter Memoir by Patrisse Khan-Cullors was sensational. It’s hard read but an important one.
- Long Way Down by Jason Reynolds is an incredible story-in-verse about a young boy on his way to avenge his brother’s murder. He gets on an elevator and, at every floor, it stops and someone steps on. Listen to this one on audio—it’s only 90 minutes!
Honorable mentions go to Dear Emmie Blue by Lia Louis, Know My Name by Chanel Miller, and The Invisible Life of Addie LaRue by V.E. Schwab.
How many books are on your Goodreads TBR? What’s one of the top reads of 2021 for you?
Love this.
I have weekends that I do just that – make time for reading – & always am glad I did it.
Its a good self-care thing for me really – comforting
You KNOW I love bookish topics. <3 A friend, just this morning, told me a piece of advice she'd heard (from Patrick Stewart, aka Jean Luc Picard): Wake up earlier than you normally do, grab a cup of coffee, and read a book. Then no matter what else happens during the course of the day, you at least had that time to yourself. I found that SO CHARMING. (Especially because mornings are ROUGH around here.) Anyway, your search for creative ways to work in more reading time made me think of it.
My Goodreads TBR has — wait for it — 745 books on it. Yikes. I don't necessarily mind the length, but I do wish I had a better organization system, because obviously who knows WHAT is at the bottom (top? start?) of that list. I add every book that sounds appealing and then forget WHY they were appealing.
You are still making time for reading so don’t be too critical of yourself for choosing other things (which may be related lately to meeting someone new!). Reading volumes can ebb and flow with life and you may find your numbers creeping up to what they used to be! My reading is at an all-time high these days, between having fewer social plans and reading while nursing Will. I can also read when I have downtime during the work day which is not something I felt I could do in the office! Unless I could stealthily reading on my kindle ap!
Best books of 2021 so far for me as Between Two Kingdoms, the latest Louise Penny novel, and Code Name Helene, but it was really tough to pick just 3! There are 280 books on my TBR list. I’m probably due to cull that list! One solution would be to create a custom list of books that you absolutely want to read very soon? Then you can use that to pick what to read next? I also lean heavily on my goodreads list to figure out what to read next, although I’ve used it less lately because I have a bunch of books tagged in Libby to request when I need another book to read! I always need to have an ebook going for when I’m nursing so when a book on my request list isn’t available, I will pick from that list as most are available immediately.
I spend a lot of time thinking about my reading and how to optimize it, too! Clear sign we are book nerds. 🙂 And my YTD reading tally is 86 books which is bananas. That is what I used to read in a year!!
I read Kindred in January, too, and it was SO good. I feel like I’d just be adding to your TBR list, but An Elderly Lady is Up to No Good has really stuck with me. I don’t want to give anything away, but it’s definitely made me reconsider my own stereotypes about elderly people. Also, Becky Chambers is a genius and science fiction is better for her presence in it.
You read the same way I do! I go through 2-3 books a week as well and I read in small chunks throughout the day, and then a few days a week I just read solidly for a few hours. I have 197 books on my library “to-read” list and another 20 on hold, and that doesn’t include the books on my shelf that I want to read or reread.
Wouldn’t it be cool if you could have multiple lists (based on priority) to bookmark books on Goodreads? I often just go by what’s available at the library but it would be cool to at least sort all the bookmarked books by the level of interest.
2 hours of reading – not counting before bedtime – is really still A LOT. I don’t think I have two hours in my day… but then I also dedicate time to other things (more workouts, more emailing, other hobbies). It’s a balance everyone has to find for themselves, but don’t beat yourself up , because you’re still reading a ton 🙂