The one thing that really helped me in my read through of Middlemarch was the reminder that it was originally an 8 volume series. They were published in 2 month intervals over a year.
Once I dropped into that mindset, I felt much better about the slower pace and pauses that occurred while I was working my way through. Kind of like waiting for the next episode of a good historical tv drama, the breaks allow some contemplation and settling in with the characters and the world which, for me, made the whole experience richer.
These longer books just need a bit more time to digest and process. 😉
That’s a great reminder. I think it was the logistics of sticking to someone else’s schedule for a long time that made it hard for me. I have done several read-alongs with friends for shorter books. Middlemarch feels like a solo project for me personally. 🤣
Yes, for this type of book in some ways reading along with others might be motivating, but then again, potentially difficult to sync up to keep pace as a group. I guess that is true for any/all book clubs.
Incidentally, I saw a nice copy of Middlemarch in a used book store in Provincetown last weekend. On the first page were notations with dates and page numbers in pencil that the reader logged as they went. It seems it took them about a year to read the book from 1/25/14 to 8/20/15. Super interesting so much so that I took a photo!
Well ... I cannot relate to that at all, Petya! But that's perhaps the result of a "professional deformation". After reading my way through Frédéric Soulié's novels, a total of about 5000 pages, for my PhD, I never ever read anything because I felt that I "had to". I just read for pleasure, or because someone (e.g.you) recommended a book to me or because I'm interested in a certain topic. No pressure, no structure, no duty. Just the books I find on my way (or that find me.
Oh, for sure. I am making things hard for myself by coming up with projects, taking notes, etc. but that’s on purpose. I miss grad school, I miss academia, my day job is challenging different parts of my brain. My husband is a teacher and he reads the same way as you!
Love the choice of authors for your 'multiple books by same author' resolution. i hope you enjoy middlemarch. it is one of my absolute favorites. i went through two chapters/sections thinking it is quite a hyped classic but after that i could not put it down and it ended up being a favorite read as well
Thank you! I am obsessed with the wisdom and guts that these authors have!
The best reading of Middlemarch that I have had so far was on a cross-Atlantic flight to Europe. Felt fully locked-in and it was amazing! I will finish it, definitely.
New subscriber here so wasn’t familiar with your concept projects but absolutely love it! I sometimes find books get lost in my huge TBR and to have a way to organise and prioritise will be very helpful - something for me to think about! Also as a former anti-rereader who is now very pro-rereading, I’ll be eager to hear how you get on with it for the rest of the year. I recently reread Ali Smith’s seasonal quartet (about 5 years after I first read them) and was struck by how valuable the experience was. The books really spoke to the time they were published and it’s interesting to see how that has changed since with the world being as it is now, I also appreciate more/different things being a little older, knowing more of the references, being at a different phase of life. FWIW, I think Cusk would be a great reread pick. I hope whatever you choose to reread you get the same enjoyment!
Sounds like we have a very similar taste! I have read Autumn and Winter, dying to read Spring and Summer. One of the reasons I am hesitant about re-reading the Outline Trilogy was that I loved all three of the books so much when I read them… but found her memoirs a little annoying… and now I am afraid that if I re-read the novels, I would feel irritated. And they were perfect for me at the time. It would be such a good experiment, for sure.
Summer was my favourite on first read (on second, it is winter). You’re in for a treat. Re Cusk: she’s certainly a character, so that is a risk. I’ve found it really interesting to see how her thoughts around develop across her works, given they seem to be concerned with similar themes. At any rate, I’ll be interested to see if you end up appreciative or irritated on reread ha!
What you say near the beginning of your reply about books getting lost in your TBR is one reason I do the reading projects I do. It helps me to find a reason to pick up certain books I know I'll love or really want to read for some reason but that aren't really calling to me when I look over my list. If I make a reason to pick them up I'm more likely to do so.
I love the idea of a concept project to guide reading. As soon as I make a list, I rebel and refuse to read anything on it, so a concept project makes much more sense for my uncooperative and stubborn mind. I particularly like the idea of trying to not get sucked into the abyss of keeping up with (and often acquiring) new books. There are so many books to enjoy, and I find that I don't read the new releases until they're a year or two old anyway.
I have been on such a JOURNEY to figure out how my brain works, what my heart likes, etc. and working with myself as opposed to against myself. Reading for me is the ultimate training ground for building self trust.
Yes, working WITH ourselves instead of trying to force an external system works so much better! I'm experimenting with several kinds of notebooks and apps to figure out a reading plan. I love the idea of building self trust through the way I handle my reading. Thank you for the inspiration!
Ha! I am really looking forward to it. In my usual fashion, I have some pretty heavy reads lined up for the month and I am excited for a change in pace!
Adore this post! My Concept Project has definitely been “Clothing and Textile history.” I’ve read 4+ books on this topic in the last 6-8 months and there is no stopping now. I love the completionist idea. Am tempted to go that route with A.S. Byatt as my other CP is prepping to run a slow read of Possession in September… there is definitely a 19th C wife under pressure in there if you feel called. 🤣. Middlemarch is worth it — I’m largely on track with that read, but my pacing has definitely not always matched the group’s, if that helps to know.
I just wrote a whole reply and it seems the internet ate it. I've been 99% nonfiction, but one of my kinks is novels that have complex clothing due to the era (and this comes up in the book) so it does bleed into fiction, too.
I really relate to your "concepts project" style reading and your reason for reading that way. I'd say that I'm more of a planned reader than a mood reader. But I do like the flexibility to not plan all of my reading out in detail far in advance and to give myself some freedom to choose within a certain framework while leaving room for picking up a spontaneous choice now and then. I do a similar type of "planning" as you by creating reading projects for myself, some that last a year and some that carry over multiple years. For example, for a few years I chose one specific type of writing (poetry, essays, short stories) each year and read several collections of that type over the course of the year. A while back I did a project called 192019 in which I read one book published each year from 1920 through 2019. 100 years worth of books but lots of choice within that. This year I'm finishing up a Jane Austen project that has lasted 7 years. Each year was focused on rereading one of her books and then reading (and watching) adaptations and retellings of that story. This last year I've been reading all of her juvenilia and unpublished works as well as Austen-adjacent nonfiction and fiction. Like you I'm also trying to intentionally work on reading all the works by favorite authors, reading from my shelves, rereading more, and reading more backlist. All that to say, I love to hear from other readers who "assign themselves reading projects" (as I like to call it) and how they approach it. So thanks for sharing all your thoughts on this with other readers!
Christine, this is so inspiring! I think that social media creates a faux urgency around reading that, in reality, is a lifelong pursuit. Sometimes I catch myself rushing through a set of books and then tell myself to slow down because I would benefit from reading at a later point in life, with more earned wisdom and lived experience.
It really is so easy to get caught up in the hype of new books, especially with the proliferation of seasonal reading lists. I love looking at them but they do increase my FOMO about what's coming out. (A good reason to appreciate Sara's fall guide with backlist books!) And I definitely feel that there are books out there I read in my early 20s that I'd get much more out of now. One wonderful benefit of rereading...
Love these projects, Christine. I feel fully encouraged to go all out with my own personal, uncontemporary reading projects.
Like Petya said, your comment is a good reminder that reading is really a lifelong, multiyear pursuit. I’ve gotten better at it, but I still sometimes unintentionally fall into the trap of thinking that all that I want to read must be read this year, if not the next month!
It's hard knowing that we'll never have time to read all the books we want to read and making peace with that. I definitely have to fight against feeling that I have to read everything right now, especially the new books while everyone is talking about them.
This is an amazing way to track your goals, Petya! It's giving me lots of good ideas for how to frame my reading life next year. Thank you for sharing.
So glad this felt useful! So many ways to go about reading goals.... I love reading other people's posts on this topic because it gives me ideas to try myself, even if I don't necessarily share their EXACT reading taste.
I am SO excited for the book chat!!! I recently decided it would change my entire life if I were to read all of Iris Murdoch's (26...) novels in chronological order but I'm trying to talk myself into a more realistic goal. The ones that were just Booker nominated (7) feels more doable but boring, maybe I'll do something like every other novel or just the ones published in summer or something a little more whimsical!
The Iris Murdoch project sounds amazing and also terribly intimidating. But with 26 books to work with, I bet you can define smaller projects within. Mike from Books on GIF is doing a month of Murdoch in October! He would be a good partner-in-nerd on this one for you!!!
I love the structure in your reading. Yes, your book pile to read before the end of the year is totally doable! I believe in you!
Summer is a difficult time for me and I always have a hard time concentrating during the hottest months of July and August. They’re my slowest reading months but I’ve recently picked up the pace again with my current reads and it feels great. I’ve found that having separate books for daytime and evening really help.
Summer is the worst for me too. There's so much LIFE happening and my brain is just in total overload. I am surprised that I have been able to read as much as I have this summer. Rumi and Kyle went back to school and we are all already sleep deprived but life feels calmer already, with everyone on a regular schedule again.
I bring my book with me everywhere I go but I am finding - through trial and error - that the most I can do is one audiobook and one paper book at a time. I think that's why the long-term reading projects with the groups have been hard for me because they are requiring that I have a whole third track going and my brain is rejecting it.
P.S. We need to start planning our trip! Fall is coming!
My reading goal at the beginning of the year was to get to some of the big books on my TBR pile. I lowered my yearly goal (I like having a yearly goal for number of books read) to make room. But I’ve only read one and a half big books so far. What I have been doing, though, is trying to read deeper. I have a list of book journal prompts that are more academic than my previous journaling. I’m still not big on annotating in books, so my journal is my main way of being in discussion with the book.
I also find book journaling very useful. I have three little booklets that I use for different kinds of books; one is for the novels I review on my Substack, one for my re-reading of Karl May, an extremely successful 19th century German author (I'm working on a study for a literary journal on his art of portraying his characters) and one for other books I'm reading, biographies or political analysis. It works!
Karl May was/is super popular in Bulgaria! I belive that my Bulgarian friend who did his PhD in literature at Stanford wrote his dissertation on his work!!!
Really!! I had no idea. Did you read any of his books as a child?
Actually, there was and is a lot of research on Karl May. I was a huge fan of his books as a child and decided to pick his novels up again when I retired, expecting that I couldn't tolerate this kind of literature anymore. But I still find it very interesting to analyze just how he managed to produce this incredible fascination (100 million books sold!) for the world he ccreated.The Karl May Society is the second largest literary society in Germany, right after the Goethe Society …
I don't remember it well but I know that I read The Sons of Great Bear. And my cousin basically pretended she was Winnetou until she was 14, to the point that her parents were starting to worry about her. lol
Please, say hello to your cousin from my part!! I can totally relate to that, because I was always Winnetou and my best friend was Old Shatterhand. When I visited her last year, she presented me to a neighbor as “and this is my friend Winnetou”! It's pretty crazy, but a nice kind of crazy. And it shows the impact of literature on life: I think I travelled the world and lived in so many places ultimately because of Karl May …
as a mostly library reader, one of the things i like about it is that it makes both reading and choosing what to read a more organic, hands-off experience: i am beholden to the library system. if a book is popular and new, i have to wait, no questions asked about joining a press cycle (unless i was excited enough about it to put a hold on it early, or in a handful of cases, excited enough to buy a copy). sometimes i get a book out and it's the wrong time to read the book, or, realistically i was NEVER going to read it, and it can go back into the river of books!
hopefully this wasn't too preachy, it is just a very different reading mindset. collecting and curating a hold list is different than a reading pile, but once it's built up, it's like a steady stream of books i thought about reading a month (or more) ago and now i have to decide if i was right back then, hahaha.
not preachy at all. i think that's absolutely the best way to go! i am making an effort too. my problem is that between preferring paper copies and being really rough with my books (i underline and annotate mercilessly).... but not everything has to be a STUDY.
Lol yes. I also have books on inactive holds and I’m not sure when I’ll put them on hold again. So neither my past, present or future selves want to read them and yet I can’t seem to remove them either…
I’m trying to get better at keeping a record of where I first heard of a book…because it will come in from the library and it’s helpful to know why did I find this interesting…and if i loved it, I want to go back to the source and find more.
2 weeks ago I had 6 new releases come in from the library at the same time. It was actually really exciting and daunting. I’ve read 4, returned one and in the middle of the last…sometimes I’m better at rescheduling my holds, but with new releases it depends how many copies the library buys.
OK. I am officially at work on HOW TO MAKE THE MOST OF YOUR LIBRARY CARD post. Paging all Library Card power users! Please DM so we can put together a GUIDE for the people!!!
If you read ebooks from the library you can save kindle notes before the book goes back. Out of context it is sometimes easier to see what is more "commonplace" worthy.
Your point of view of how you organize what you’re going to read and your goals is so inspiring. Sometimes the endless TBR gets to feel overwhelming, even though it’s such a blessing to have so many books to choose from. You’ve inspired me to be more intentional with my choices and I’m very thankful !
Also love the nod to Martyr! And it inspiring the poetry goal, that’s my favorite book
It is SO overwhelming. And the anxiety about wanting to reading everything you want to read and read it NOW... These projects are just my way of putting some artificial guardrails to keep me somewhat sane.
I read Martyr! both on paper and listened to it on audio.... and I cried at so many traffic lights in my car. lol
I need to think on this. Maybe I need an X, Y, Z graph for my project - all scaled...within the arena of my reading kinks: mood/passion, emotional value, writing value. I know that if I follow my mood as a starting point I have a better experience! Long books, like Middlemarch, have only worked within Discord groups for me. The spoiler tag allows everyone to comment without consent to a time frame. Finish early or finish late...just look when ready.
The one thing that really helped me in my read through of Middlemarch was the reminder that it was originally an 8 volume series. They were published in 2 month intervals over a year.
Once I dropped into that mindset, I felt much better about the slower pace and pauses that occurred while I was working my way through. Kind of like waiting for the next episode of a good historical tv drama, the breaks allow some contemplation and settling in with the characters and the world which, for me, made the whole experience richer.
These longer books just need a bit more time to digest and process. 😉
That’s a great reminder. I think it was the logistics of sticking to someone else’s schedule for a long time that made it hard for me. I have done several read-alongs with friends for shorter books. Middlemarch feels like a solo project for me personally. 🤣
Yes, for this type of book in some ways reading along with others might be motivating, but then again, potentially difficult to sync up to keep pace as a group. I guess that is true for any/all book clubs.
Incidentally, I saw a nice copy of Middlemarch in a used book store in Provincetown last weekend. On the first page were notations with dates and page numbers in pencil that the reader logged as they went. It seems it took them about a year to read the book from 1/25/14 to 8/20/15. Super interesting so much so that I took a photo!
Actually a year and a half! But cool to see that record in that particular copy of the book!
Well ... I cannot relate to that at all, Petya! But that's perhaps the result of a "professional deformation". After reading my way through Frédéric Soulié's novels, a total of about 5000 pages, for my PhD, I never ever read anything because I felt that I "had to". I just read for pleasure, or because someone (e.g.you) recommended a book to me or because I'm interested in a certain topic. No pressure, no structure, no duty. Just the books I find on my way (or that find me.
Oh, for sure. I am making things hard for myself by coming up with projects, taking notes, etc. but that’s on purpose. I miss grad school, I miss academia, my day job is challenging different parts of my brain. My husband is a teacher and he reads the same way as you!
Love the choice of authors for your 'multiple books by same author' resolution. i hope you enjoy middlemarch. it is one of my absolute favorites. i went through two chapters/sections thinking it is quite a hyped classic but after that i could not put it down and it ended up being a favorite read as well
Thank you! I am obsessed with the wisdom and guts that these authors have!
The best reading of Middlemarch that I have had so far was on a cross-Atlantic flight to Europe. Felt fully locked-in and it was amazing! I will finish it, definitely.
New subscriber here so wasn’t familiar with your concept projects but absolutely love it! I sometimes find books get lost in my huge TBR and to have a way to organise and prioritise will be very helpful - something for me to think about! Also as a former anti-rereader who is now very pro-rereading, I’ll be eager to hear how you get on with it for the rest of the year. I recently reread Ali Smith’s seasonal quartet (about 5 years after I first read them) and was struck by how valuable the experience was. The books really spoke to the time they were published and it’s interesting to see how that has changed since with the world being as it is now, I also appreciate more/different things being a little older, knowing more of the references, being at a different phase of life. FWIW, I think Cusk would be a great reread pick. I hope whatever you choose to reread you get the same enjoyment!
Sounds like we have a very similar taste! I have read Autumn and Winter, dying to read Spring and Summer. One of the reasons I am hesitant about re-reading the Outline Trilogy was that I loved all three of the books so much when I read them… but found her memoirs a little annoying… and now I am afraid that if I re-read the novels, I would feel irritated. And they were perfect for me at the time. It would be such a good experiment, for sure.
Summer was my favourite on first read (on second, it is winter). You’re in for a treat. Re Cusk: she’s certainly a character, so that is a risk. I’ve found it really interesting to see how her thoughts around develop across her works, given they seem to be concerned with similar themes. At any rate, I’ll be interested to see if you end up appreciative or irritated on reread ha!
What you say near the beginning of your reply about books getting lost in your TBR is one reason I do the reading projects I do. It helps me to find a reason to pick up certain books I know I'll love or really want to read for some reason but that aren't really calling to me when I look over my list. If I make a reason to pick them up I'm more likely to do so.
I love the idea of a concept project to guide reading. As soon as I make a list, I rebel and refuse to read anything on it, so a concept project makes much more sense for my uncooperative and stubborn mind. I particularly like the idea of trying to not get sucked into the abyss of keeping up with (and often acquiring) new books. There are so many books to enjoy, and I find that I don't read the new releases until they're a year or two old anyway.
I have been on such a JOURNEY to figure out how my brain works, what my heart likes, etc. and working with myself as opposed to against myself. Reading for me is the ultimate training ground for building self trust.
Yes, working WITH ourselves instead of trying to force an external system works so much better! I'm experimenting with several kinds of notebooks and apps to figure out a reading plan. I love the idea of building self trust through the way I handle my reading. Thank you for the inspiration!
Keep us posted!
Enjoy LEVERAGE! All I can promise is utter madness and total depravity.
Looking forward to hearing your unvarnished thoughts later this month!
Ha! I am really looking forward to it. In my usual fashion, I have some pretty heavy reads lined up for the month and I am excited for a change in pace!
Adore this post! My Concept Project has definitely been “Clothing and Textile history.” I’ve read 4+ books on this topic in the last 6-8 months and there is no stopping now. I love the completionist idea. Am tempted to go that route with A.S. Byatt as my other CP is prepping to run a slow read of Possession in September… there is definitely a 19th C wife under pressure in there if you feel called. 🤣. Middlemarch is worth it — I’m largely on track with that read, but my pacing has definitely not always matched the group’s, if that helps to know.
SO SPECIFIC! I love that so much! Are they novels or non-fiction?
I just wrote a whole reply and it seems the internet ate it. I've been 99% nonfiction, but one of my kinks is novels that have complex clothing due to the era (and this comes up in the book) so it does bleed into fiction, too.
I really relate to your "concepts project" style reading and your reason for reading that way. I'd say that I'm more of a planned reader than a mood reader. But I do like the flexibility to not plan all of my reading out in detail far in advance and to give myself some freedom to choose within a certain framework while leaving room for picking up a spontaneous choice now and then. I do a similar type of "planning" as you by creating reading projects for myself, some that last a year and some that carry over multiple years. For example, for a few years I chose one specific type of writing (poetry, essays, short stories) each year and read several collections of that type over the course of the year. A while back I did a project called 192019 in which I read one book published each year from 1920 through 2019. 100 years worth of books but lots of choice within that. This year I'm finishing up a Jane Austen project that has lasted 7 years. Each year was focused on rereading one of her books and then reading (and watching) adaptations and retellings of that story. This last year I've been reading all of her juvenilia and unpublished works as well as Austen-adjacent nonfiction and fiction. Like you I'm also trying to intentionally work on reading all the works by favorite authors, reading from my shelves, rereading more, and reading more backlist. All that to say, I love to hear from other readers who "assign themselves reading projects" (as I like to call it) and how they approach it. So thanks for sharing all your thoughts on this with other readers!
Christine, this is so inspiring! I think that social media creates a faux urgency around reading that, in reality, is a lifelong pursuit. Sometimes I catch myself rushing through a set of books and then tell myself to slow down because I would benefit from reading at a later point in life, with more earned wisdom and lived experience.
It really is so easy to get caught up in the hype of new books, especially with the proliferation of seasonal reading lists. I love looking at them but they do increase my FOMO about what's coming out. (A good reason to appreciate Sara's fall guide with backlist books!) And I definitely feel that there are books out there I read in my early 20s that I'd get much more out of now. One wonderful benefit of rereading...
Love these projects, Christine. I feel fully encouraged to go all out with my own personal, uncontemporary reading projects.
Like Petya said, your comment is a good reminder that reading is really a lifelong, multiyear pursuit. I’ve gotten better at it, but I still sometimes unintentionally fall into the trap of thinking that all that I want to read must be read this year, if not the next month!
SAME. It's insane. I blame Goodreads. 😂😂
It's hard knowing that we'll never have time to read all the books we want to read and making peace with that. I definitely have to fight against feeling that I have to read everything right now, especially the new books while everyone is talking about them.
This is an amazing way to track your goals, Petya! It's giving me lots of good ideas for how to frame my reading life next year. Thank you for sharing.
So glad this felt useful! So many ways to go about reading goals.... I love reading other people's posts on this topic because it gives me ideas to try myself, even if I don't necessarily share their EXACT reading taste.
I am SO excited for the book chat!!! I recently decided it would change my entire life if I were to read all of Iris Murdoch's (26...) novels in chronological order but I'm trying to talk myself into a more realistic goal. The ones that were just Booker nominated (7) feels more doable but boring, maybe I'll do something like every other novel or just the ones published in summer or something a little more whimsical!
OMG. I can't wait to meet you!
The Iris Murdoch project sounds amazing and also terribly intimidating. But with 26 books to work with, I bet you can define smaller projects within. Mike from Books on GIF is doing a month of Murdoch in October! He would be a good partner-in-nerd on this one for you!!!
oooh good to know!
I love the structure in your reading. Yes, your book pile to read before the end of the year is totally doable! I believe in you!
Summer is a difficult time for me and I always have a hard time concentrating during the hottest months of July and August. They’re my slowest reading months but I’ve recently picked up the pace again with my current reads and it feels great. I’ve found that having separate books for daytime and evening really help.
Summer is the worst for me too. There's so much LIFE happening and my brain is just in total overload. I am surprised that I have been able to read as much as I have this summer. Rumi and Kyle went back to school and we are all already sleep deprived but life feels calmer already, with everyone on a regular schedule again.
I bring my book with me everywhere I go but I am finding - through trial and error - that the most I can do is one audiobook and one paper book at a time. I think that's why the long-term reading projects with the groups have been hard for me because they are requiring that I have a whole third track going and my brain is rejecting it.
P.S. We need to start planning our trip! Fall is coming!
Yes!!! 🍁🍂😍
My reading goal at the beginning of the year was to get to some of the big books on my TBR pile. I lowered my yearly goal (I like having a yearly goal for number of books read) to make room. But I’ve only read one and a half big books so far. What I have been doing, though, is trying to read deeper. I have a list of book journal prompts that are more academic than my previous journaling. I’m still not big on annotating in books, so my journal is my main way of being in discussion with the book.
Reading deeper (living deeper) is my goal, too. Book journaling is wonderful and meaningful! Thank you so much for saying hi!
I also find book journaling very useful. I have three little booklets that I use for different kinds of books; one is for the novels I review on my Substack, one for my re-reading of Karl May, an extremely successful 19th century German author (I'm working on a study for a literary journal on his art of portraying his characters) and one for other books I'm reading, biographies or political analysis. It works!
Karl May was/is super popular in Bulgaria! I belive that my Bulgarian friend who did his PhD in literature at Stanford wrote his dissertation on his work!!!
Really!! I had no idea. Did you read any of his books as a child?
Actually, there was and is a lot of research on Karl May. I was a huge fan of his books as a child and decided to pick his novels up again when I retired, expecting that I couldn't tolerate this kind of literature anymore. But I still find it very interesting to analyze just how he managed to produce this incredible fascination (100 million books sold!) for the world he ccreated.The Karl May Society is the second largest literary society in Germany, right after the Goethe Society …
I don't remember it well but I know that I read The Sons of Great Bear. And my cousin basically pretended she was Winnetou until she was 14, to the point that her parents were starting to worry about her. lol
Please, say hello to your cousin from my part!! I can totally relate to that, because I was always Winnetou and my best friend was Old Shatterhand. When I visited her last year, she presented me to a neighbor as “and this is my friend Winnetou”! It's pretty crazy, but a nice kind of crazy. And it shows the impact of literature on life: I think I travelled the world and lived in so many places ultimately because of Karl May …
as a mostly library reader, one of the things i like about it is that it makes both reading and choosing what to read a more organic, hands-off experience: i am beholden to the library system. if a book is popular and new, i have to wait, no questions asked about joining a press cycle (unless i was excited enough about it to put a hold on it early, or in a handful of cases, excited enough to buy a copy). sometimes i get a book out and it's the wrong time to read the book, or, realistically i was NEVER going to read it, and it can go back into the river of books!
hopefully this wasn't too preachy, it is just a very different reading mindset. collecting and curating a hold list is different than a reading pile, but once it's built up, it's like a steady stream of books i thought about reading a month (or more) ago and now i have to decide if i was right back then, hahaha.
not preachy at all. i think that's absolutely the best way to go! i am making an effort too. my problem is that between preferring paper copies and being really rough with my books (i underline and annotate mercilessly).... but not everything has to be a STUDY.
this is why i’m a photo-taker! not quite as satisfying but good good enough
Hello from another big library reader, also particularly beholden to and at the mercy of TPL’s hold system!
when a book comes in that you completely forget why you requested it or who recommended it? it's like a puzzle to solve from your past self
Lol yes. I also have books on inactive holds and I’m not sure when I’ll put them on hold again. So neither my past, present or future selves want to read them and yet I can’t seem to remove them either…
I’m trying to get better at keeping a record of where I first heard of a book…because it will come in from the library and it’s helpful to know why did I find this interesting…and if i loved it, I want to go back to the source and find more.
2 weeks ago I had 6 new releases come in from the library at the same time. It was actually really exciting and daunting. I’ve read 4, returned one and in the middle of the last…sometimes I’m better at rescheduling my holds, but with new releases it depends how many copies the library buys.
OK. I am officially at work on HOW TO MAKE THE MOST OF YOUR LIBRARY CARD post. Paging all Library Card power users! Please DM so we can put together a GUIDE for the people!!!
If you read ebooks from the library you can save kindle notes before the book goes back. Out of context it is sometimes easier to see what is more "commonplace" worthy.
a friend of mine went out and got a library card for her newborn child to get around our library’s 50 hold max 😌
that's so funny!
Your point of view of how you organize what you’re going to read and your goals is so inspiring. Sometimes the endless TBR gets to feel overwhelming, even though it’s such a blessing to have so many books to choose from. You’ve inspired me to be more intentional with my choices and I’m very thankful !
Also love the nod to Martyr! And it inspiring the poetry goal, that’s my favorite book
It is SO overwhelming. And the anxiety about wanting to reading everything you want to read and read it NOW... These projects are just my way of putting some artificial guardrails to keep me somewhat sane.
I read Martyr! both on paper and listened to it on audio.... and I cried at so many traffic lights in my car. lol
Protecting our sanity is key. And I cherish your wisdom ♥️
I will come back to reading the rest of the post because once I hit Zoom meeting 🥳...
I won't hold it against you if you can't make it because.... LIFE... but I so hope that you can!!! 🥰🥰🥰
Ha! It is on my paper calendar and my Google calendar!
I better do the same!!!
I need to think on this. Maybe I need an X, Y, Z graph for my project - all scaled...within the arena of my reading kinks: mood/passion, emotional value, writing value. I know that if I follow my mood as a starting point I have a better experience! Long books, like Middlemarch, have only worked within Discord groups for me. The spoiler tag allows everyone to comment without consent to a time frame. Finish early or finish late...just look when ready.
A very math teacher-y approach to your reading! :)
haha I thought the same!!! we love to see it!
Often times I feel like the whole of my life lives on a scale 😁