Month: January 2013

books
02 Jan 2013

your reading life

Reading is something that I do professionally, as a hobby, as a means for social interaction, as a lifelong habit I will never kick. I want to read new books in my field and classics and award-winners and award-contenders, but I also want to read what makes my heart sing. It’s a fine balance that I’m sure many of you lit-folks understand – your reading is a public endeavor, a means to a larger end, but it will still always be a deeply personal, deeply important experience. If it wasn’t, then you wouldn’t read so damn much.

And I saw all of your Goodreads challenge goals yesterday. You guys read too damn much.

Anyway, what I’m trying to say is that there are books you have to read, books you think you should read, books that you want to read, and the beauty of this whole reading thing is that at any given time you have the ultimate freedom to choose. Like any other freedom, this is brilliant and exciting and fun, but also sometimes terrifying.

Anyway, what I’m really trying to say is – I am done with my Cybils reading, my library is filling holds once again, it is the new year, and I am assigning far too much metaphysical importance to which books to read next.

I’ve been thinking about Kelly’s post over at Stacked about Reading Resolutions and Reading Challenges and how, at the end of the day, she finds them personally unsatisfying. Although I am not a person who feels stressed out about goals (HAVE MORE OBVIOUS WORDS EVER BEEN SPOKEN), I also shy away from said challenges, maybe for the same reasons. I might love reading from a syllabus – a proscribed list of Must Reads, if you will – but when the syllabus is a list of titles arbitrarily selected by myself or an outside party, I feel itchy.

So where’s the happy medium? I have no idea. It’s probably different for every professional reader. I have friends who read nothing but Should Reads and Must Reads for weeks, then binge on tawdry romances and trendy adult fantasy for a week or so to reset. Some friends set modest genre quotas for the year, read at least an ARC a month, take recommendations from patrons, read the award winners every year – small moves to keep their reading intentional and professional without submitting that personal reading control.

Personally, this year I’d like to strike this balance by seeking more organic reading patterns. Read deeper into a genre that interests me, read a series straight through, read a chunk of award winners, let a topic pull my interest and read more to get a broader understanding.

One of the most satisfying reading experiences I’ve had was from a graduate class a few years back in which we read an author’s body of work straight through, chronologically; by the end of the run, I felt like I had learned so much about an author’s life, her career, her evolving talent and the ever changing landscape of children’s publishing, but it was also intensely intimate, an almost sure-fire way to make you a lifelong fan. The practice really hit that sweet spot between professionally-useful reading and personally-satisfying reading, and that’s what I’m really going for: reading in a way that fans the flames of professional passion.

I’m thinking I will start off 2013 with one of my favorite genres, one that I didn’t pay much mind to in 2012, and mixing in a little re-reading (which I probably love more than reading). Five romances for the new year for me; cheers to you and your reading year and to books that make you love books!

 

1. Love and Other Perishable Items by Laura Buzo

2. Anna and the French Kiss by Stephanie Perkins

3. The Statistical Probability of Love at First Sight by Jennifer E. Smith

4. The Truth About Forever by Sarah Dessen

5. Meant to Be by Lauren Morrill

 

 

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goals
01 Jan 2013

more in 2013

Aside from my Super-Secret New Year’s Resolutions which I am still not going to tell you about, I am hoping that 2013 is a year of more.

 

More movies

because I enjoy movies and never make enough time to watch them. I’m not setting a hard goal, but maybe 50? 50 seems like a nice, round number.

 

More documenting

because I love documenting. It might seem silly or self-indulgent to fixate so much on one’s own existence, but it brings me pleasure to record my own goings on. I bought some little Clairefontaines to record things such as movies watched, books read, and dinners enjoyed. Also: a new paper journal.

 

More autopilot

Not everything requires daily stress, frequent attention. Some things should just run well mostly by themselves. This year, meal planning, family finances, and blogging logistics all go on autopilot.

 

More tea drinking

I don’t like tea, but maybe I do. I don’t know. It’s no coffee, but coffee is expensive and a pain to acquire/brew properly and keeps you up at night, as where tea can be consumed in nearly unlimited quantities, and it makes you feel fancy. I drink a cup or two a day now in addition to my coffee habits and okay fine, I like it and I want to drink more.

 

More social media engagement

This is like an anti-resolution, like resolving to start smoking and gain 20 pounds. But I haven’t been as active on Twitter and other social media places lately, and I think it’s out of laziness rather than a conscious decision to cut back. Less sitting around and reading your Twitter-stream, your Facebook feed, and more joining in on the fun!

 

More meditation

I am not good at meditation but it seems like exactly the kind of skill that I should try to get better at – the skill of shutting yourself up. Practice makes perfect, however, so this year, more practice is in store.

 

More owning my decisions

It’s okay to make decisions for yourself without the excessive input of other people, and it’s okay to talk about those decisions, and it’s okay to ask that others respect them. This sounds like a big deal that I am being deliberately vague about, but it’s not. It’s just little every day stuff, but I am happier when I make my own choices and take responsibility for them every day, that’s all.

~

Also, I wanted to make a Do Something Every Day resolution that would actually improve my quality of life immediately and tangibly, so in 2013, I am going to make my bed every day. Today this task was completed at 8:30 p.m. which still totally counts. Also, although I do love my mismatched pillowcases, one from Target and one from my grandmother’s house, and our hand-me-down quilt, maybe I will also acquire some more grown up bedroom linens in 2013 as well? One step at a time. If you make the bed, they will come. Or something like that.

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