Insatiable Appetite for Reading

Doesn't it figure that the year I loosen my reading expectations, lower my book reading goal on Goodreads, and quit my book club, is the year that I develop an insatiable appetite for reading.

Last week I had to increase my reading goal on Goodreads from 30 books to 40 books for the year. I was seven books ahead of schedule and it is only the end of March.

I recently finished Stephen King's book On Writing. His top piece of advise to writers is "read a lot and write a lot". I am well on my way this year, although I did feel a bit sheepish when Stephen said he is a slow reader, finishing only 80-90 books per year. If he is slow, I am almost comatose. We won't talk about how many words he writes a day.

I usually have a tangible book, and an e-book going at the same time. The great thing about e-books is that I can be reading it on my iPad and then when I have to wait somewhere, like the grocery story line or the doctor's office, I can continue to read the book on my iPhone. I recently have taken the plunge into audio books. I love listening to a book while I am at the gym, it is a great motivator. I want to keep listening to the story.

I have also found that if small talk isn't your God given gift, being a reader helps you to find a topic to discuss. If you read enough you are bound to find common ground. On our recent cruise with some of my husband's co-workers and their spouses, I found this very helpful (small talk not being my God given gift). I was reading Brave Girl Eating on my iPad on the plane. The book is written by the mother of a high school age daughter with anorexia, a well written book since the mother is a professor of journalism. That book was discussed many times over the course of our cruise, it is amazing to me how many people know somebody with an eating disorder.

I found Brave Girl Eating on BookBub.com (another recent addiction), it is all e-books, either on Amazon or iBooks. They send out a daily emails with the specials of the day, e-books ranging from free to $2.99. You choose the categories of books you are interested in when you sign up for the emails.

One of my favorite daily activities on the cruise was to wander the among the lounge chairs on the upper decks looking at the covers of books people were reading (this is one downfall of e-books), I am a sucker for a good book cover. I discovered a few good ones in my wanderings, one being The Widow by Fiona Barton. It was interesting to see how many people were reading the same book or the same author, I saw a lot of Jojo Moyes.

I didn't finish all the books I brought on the trip, but I did finish two and started two others.

The best moment came when we were at the Miami Airport on our way home, we had a couple of hours before our flight. I had had my share of sitting for the week, so I left my husband in charge of the carry-ons and wandered off towards the bookstore I had spotted on the way to our gate. I went in not with the intention of buying, only to capture interesting book covers with my iPhone. When I returned to our waiting area, my friend Stacy was back from her own wanderings. We discovered that we had each taken photos of book covers for future reading ideas. We compared photos.
Stacy's captures:

My captures:

These five have been added to my very long to-read list.

First Quarter Reads:

Tangible Books:
On Writing - Stephen King - 5 stars
Imagined London - Anna Quindlen - 3 stars
A Detroit Anthology - Anna Clark - 4 stars
Thunderstruck - Erik Larson - 2 stars
Wanderlust - Rebecca Solnit - 3 stars
The Creative Habit - Twyla Tharp - 5 stars
All The Light We Cannot See - Anthony Doerr - 5 stars
The Storied Life of A.J. Fiery - Gabrielle Zevin - 5 stars
The Paris Wife - Paula McLain - 4 stars

E-Books:
Brave Girl Eating - Harriet Brown - 4 stars
The Longing for Home - Frederick Buechner - 4 stars

Audio Books:
Dress Your Family in Corduroy and Denim - David Sedaris - 5 stars

Not a bad start for the year. I would love to hear what you are reading right now.

What to Read in 2016

Our family loves books, which is evident the moment you step through our front door and into our living room. As you turn your head slightly to the right, you are struck by the sight of four, floor to ceiling, every shelf full, mahogany-brown, wooden bookcases.

Generally though, you won't find me sitting at a desk in the middle of the living room, like a librarian waiting to check your books out. I took this self-portrait earlier in the year for one of Vivienne McMaster's self-portraiture classes, now I finally have a reason to use it.

The library bookcases were something we had long talked about investing in. Two years ago, when we updated the furniture and wall color, we made the commitment to purchase some aesthetically pleasing bookcases to house part of our vast collection of books.

The last few days I have been half-heartedly going through Susannah Conway's Unraveling the Year Ahead workbook, hoping as I answer the questions, I will find my direction for 2016. But after reading through the workbook,  I have not settled on a "word" to pin my hopes and dreams to for the year ahead. I always feel that somehow I let my word down every year, not living up the potential it saw in me. So I have bypassed those questions for the time being.

 A little farther into the questions about 2016, I came to one that had me scrambling around the house gathering books and quickly filling three pages of journaling in my Inspiration Journal...List three books that you want to read in 2016?

Only three? I had already gathered a stack of ten, and that didn't even include the books on my iPad waiting to be read, or the e-books I have stored in iBooks.

I love to read, and in 2015 I re-devoted time and energy to learning, most of all learning through reading. One reflection note from 2015, I have found I do best if I am reading one inspirational book and one just for fun book at the same time. I need the constant influx of inspiration in my life that reading creative related books provides, but I also need a just for fun book to read before bed. Each book I read tends to be a spring-board to another book that wasn't on my Goodreads "to-be-read" list, no wonder that list never gets any smaller.

Instead of choosing only three books, I made two piles of three books each. One pile for inspiration books and one pile for just-for-fun books. Here is what I have so far:

Inspiration books

Just for Fun books

I will start with these six and see where they lead me. Unfortunately there isn't any room on those  aesthetically pleasing, wooden bookshelves in the living room for these books when I finish them. Maybe we will have to start another library area downstairs in the family room. Oh wait there already are four, half bookcases down there, well...maybe the music room...

New Year's Bonus

Some fun facts about me and my reading habits

• I prefer to lie down when reading, unfortunately more often than not, that leads to napping.
• I have been keeping a list of all the books I have read since I was 20, in 27 years I have read 947 books. It really seems like it should be more.
• I set a goal on Goodreads each year of how many books I want to read during that year. For 2015 my goal was 40 books. I will fall a couple of books short, but still not shabby. 
• For 2016 I think I will set my Goodreads goal for 30, then I can read thicker books and not feel so bad.
• I have a whole bookcase next to my side of the bed, filled with books I have not read yet... maybe I could open a library.
• I am happy reading on my iPad or reading real, tangible books.
• Real books photograph better though
• I love bookstores, especially independent ones. 
• Glen and I use to dream of owning an indie bookstore when we retired.
• I always read when I am eating alone.
• I must read before bed
• The one advantage to throwing my back out is that I can lay on the couch for hours and read and not feel at all guilty. 

I would love to hear what you want to read in 2016. And if you are on Goodreads - let's be friends!