I am not reading any fiction right now. I am reading a really long and interesting nonfiction book about food and products that are not really food but we eat them anyway. I am re-reading The Happiness Project because I have mental issues and this book calms me down. I just started a new audiobook, but but but I’m not reading any paper fiction and it feels weird.

I have also put myself back in hold jail, so I must work with what I have. Here are my top contenders:

Caring is Creepy – snagged from the Alex Awards list. Am I in the mood for something dark and creepy and messed up?

No? Maybe a fun, award-winning animal book? The One and Only Ivan is sitting here, waiting for me, and did you guys know that each page is mostly white space? I am fond of a good book with a lot of white space on the page.

Or I could dig into my ever-growing pile of Advanced Readers. Can Lauren Graham write a book that is worth reading? I have the answer to this question in my purse – Someday, Someday Maybe – if only I could decide on what to read.

And last but not least, a new-ish YA that has captured my attention – The Tragedy Paper. The public asked that I buy it for the library, so I did. My Dearest Former Roommate read it and didn’t like it. So I should read it and form my own opinion?

I have all of these books at the ready, ready to read. Which one will it be? Well, here’s a helpful tournament bracket that will help me decide:

Just kidding. There is no way I am making a bracket of anything. I am just going to hem and haw uselessly for a few more days and then pick whatever book is closest to me in whatever part of my apartment I happen to be in.

School Library Journal’s annual Battle of the Books is fun… but Roger Sutton’s Battle of the Battle of the Books Judges is genius.

As the BoB judges – all authors of YA or children’s books – make judgements between two books, Roger makes judgements about their judgement. Although I like the idea of Book Battles (or any brackets that are not basketball related, actually), I always find myself skimming through the judge’s (always lengthy) reports to get to the good stuff – the results.

After reading Roger’s commentary for a few weeks, I think I know why – these BoB judges aren’t making arguments, they don’t let the books talk to each other, they don’t actively judge. Extended book summary, followed by “Oh gosh, how does anyone possibly decide between such amazing books?” and then a quick decision at the end that seems at best, personal, at worst, random. Roger’s meta-tourney calls everyone out on such bullshit.

I am probably not done with this topic. Relentless book praise is boring and makes the children’s lit world seem like one big cheering squad and not a legitimate literary atmosphere. At the same time, needless, arbitrary book hate is also damaging – there is nothing more obnoxious than a One-Star Goodreads review whose rationale seems to be “Ugh, that character should have just done Blah, Blah, Blah I couldn’t stand it!” There are a million ways to be a bad representative of a book – I have my own bad habits, I’m sure – but that doesn’t mean we can’t all strive to do right for the books we love.

I have been thinking about what books are in my personal canon and how they got there. When I wrote that post, I had some books in mind, but since then I’ve been second-guessing myself. I only read that book once – could it really have been that important to me? I felt inspired when I read that book in 2007, but it’s 2013 now – has my life truly been changed? This is why I generally try to avoid superlatives, lest I become completely paralyzed by the pressure to decide what books are BEST and what the word BEST means and excuse me I need to go write an academic paper on the topic before it makes any sense…

Books/labels/everything-else-in-life is more fluid than my perfectionist urges, and I try to lean into that fluidity when I can. Books can speak to you at one time in your life and then seem completely irrelevant or lame or poorly-written at another time. C’est la books.

But what about books you just plum forgot? I have also been thinking often about my Unread Library, probably because my writing & thinking space has a clear view of my blue bookshelf. When I look up from my typing or reading, there are half the books I own, all of them staring at me, most of them wondering if they will ever be read or if they will sit on that blue shelf, spines un-cracked, forever.

In the corner of the middle shelf is a book I have read, read more than once. A book I used to love but haven’t thought about in years and years and years.

Donna Tartt’s A Secret History was one of the first contemporary adult novels that really appealed to me. It is not quite a Secret YA novel, but it is set in a small private college, and definitely has a young person’s sensibility (please don’t call it New Adult). Protagonist Richard comes to college without expectations and a charismatic professor sucks him out of the sciences and into the highly useful field of “Classics.” The small group of students Richard studies with become his friends, even though they are all slightly off-center and hiding all sorts of dark secrets. Violent acts occur and Richard is caught in the middle of either a mystery or a cover-up, and life changes for everyone involved.

Senior-Year-in-High-School Jessica was all about it. When her English teacher challenged her reading choices yet again (“You need to read the CLASSICS!”) this was the first book she stepped up to the plate for, quoting reviews from the back of the book, arguing for its literary merit, its acceptance into the modern canon, that it was a damn good book and not at all fluffy or YA and everything else she found unacceptable for me, her sometimes-pet student.

It was maybe my first literary argument, maybe helping to unlock that Passionate!About!Books! thing that makes up so much of my identity. I read it two or three times as a teenager, called it my favorite book. And now it sits in the corner of my bookshelf, taking up space.

I could give it a re-read. I could donate it to a teenager who might like it. Or I could let it sit there forever, its spine reminding me of Senior-Year-in-High-School Jessica, whoever she was, and the books she liked an awful lot.

 

That thing where you are recovering from a busy trip out of town, an illness, your work inbox after you come back from vacation days and sick days, and you find yourself checking out a book you just read not six months ago, a book you’ve already read twice now, a book you don’t even entirely think you believe in.

And then you realize you have a comfort book. Probably more than one. Maybe they have something in common – an author, a genre, a time of your life when you first discovered them. A time when you were discovering many things about the world and your place in it, a time when your head felt cracked open and everything you read poured right inside. Maybe there’s something about the words and how they sound in your head as you read them, even if the cadence is a cross between a fairy distant memoir and an academic paper. Pop psychology. Lady memoir. Women making changes in their lives and the world, sharing their stories with you in a way that says “you can do this too.”

When you are well, you’ll go somewhere else: to your teetering to-read stack, to a book you read in grade school, or a dippy romance you’ve read a dozen times, or maybe something shinier, newer, with complex ideas and sentence structure, written for grown-ups even. These books will be there when you are well. For now, you can just read and re-read and re-read your re-reads.

Oh, these books.

“An inexpensive paperback book from a reputable publisher is a small, rectangular, boxlike object a few inches long, a few inches wide, and an an inch or so thick. It is easy to stack and store, easy to buy, keep, give away, or throw away. As an object, it is user-friendly and routine, a mature technological form, hard to improve upon and easy to like.

Many people, myself among them, feel better at the mere sight of a book.”

 

Jane Smiley – 13 Ways of Looking at the Novel

Hey guys: it’s almost February. How are your New Year’s Resolutions going? I am making my bed every day and working on my secret resolutions and have read 12 books toward my perennial goal of reading 100 books in 2013. I try to read 100 books every year. It’s a nice round number, high enough that I push myself to read more but not too high that I go crazy trying to finish. Some years I easily read 130 – others, I squeak in #100 on December 31st.

Are you trying to read more this year? Are you already feeling anxious about your goal? If so, let me share some Reading Pro-Tips with you! There are a bazillion ways to squeeze more reading into your days and nights; here are a few I employ on a regular basis.

 

Set up “reading triggers”

Wanting to read more is kind of like wanting to exercise more or drink more water or any other number of a do-goody kind of ways to change your life. And what’s the best way to make these changes? Build habits. A good way to build a reading habit is to set up “triggers” – habits you already have or everyday activities that you can just… uh… add a book to.

Read a little when you first get up in the morning, or read a little right before bed. Read when you get out of the shower but haven’t committed to putting on clothing yet. When I was in college, I missed reading books for fun, so I decided that when I was a few minutes early to class, instead of trying to cram in last minute studying (like that works anyway…) I would read a book. A few pages here and there eventually adds up to a book, and then there’s the chance that when you start, you’ll be sucked in and want to read more. Hopefully not *while* class is in session… but I wouldn’t judge you.

 

Read for a few minutes before you are allowed to watch TV/get on the computer

This is like a trigger but in reverse – any time you have the urge to surf the Internet or turn on some mindless TV reruns, remind yourself that Books > Better than all that crap. Not that you need to quit all that stuff, you’re just delaying for a few minutes – read a chapter before partaking in electronic media.

Sometimes I do this and end up sitting with my laptop open in lap, my book open and covering the screen. This is weird and burns out my battery. But it gets the job done.

 

Carry a book with you

Dumbest advice ever… but you should do it. Every time I go to the DMV or get stuck on a train or on a long bus ride or a delayed flight, I just feel so sad for everyone who is just abjectly miserable because nobody likes waiting. I am also just confused as to why these people didn’t bring a book. Just bring a book! Put it in your purse! If you’re a dude, stick a paperback in your back pocket and make all the nerdy girls on the train stare at you lasciviously. It’s easy, and the next time you get trapped in a really long Starbucks line you’ll be the only person without the urge to stab people.

(You may also need to pretend you don’t own a smartphone with games and Instagram for this tactic to work. Good luck!)

(Also, you have to be the kind of person who likes to carry a lot of crap around with you at all times. A beast of burden, if you will.)

 

Read different books at different times

This is Advanced Level Reading, and might not work for everyone. However, it’s a habit that works very well for me, so if you are a person who gets bored halfway through a book, you might give it a try.

Before grad school, when I was living in my parents’ large home, I would keep different books in different parts of the house – a book in the family room for reading during breakfast, a book in my bedroom to read before bed, a book by the computer to read while waiting for The Sims 2 to load. Then there was an audio book in the car, a book in my purse to read at lunch at work, a book that was bendable enough to shove in the magazine holder on the elliptical machine in my gym bag. Okay, this is ridiculous, but also, practical. You will always have the book you need in the format you need where you need it.

Now, I prefer to keep 2-3 books in a rotation, usually two new ones I can alternate depending on my mood, and a re-read I’ll dip into for a few days and then forget about for a week or two. An audiobook for going to sleep and doing chores. Again, this might be the most repellant idea you’ve ever heard, but I like the feeling that if I want to read, I can read anything – not just get stuck reading something that I’m not enjoying. It keeps reading fresh.

 

Read while walking

I probably shouldn’t recommend this because it is dangerous, but I have definitely done it and have not died yet. It’s not as hard as you think – your eyes adjust. At one point, I could read books while running on the treadmill.

What I don’t recommend is reading while walking while wearing sunglasses without your contacts when your path includes many driveways and cross streets.

But, do what you got to do. Read at your own risk, yo.

 

Try an audiobook

There are so many things you can do while listening to an audiobook. So. Many. Here are twelve to get you started:

1) Drive

2) Exercise

3) The dishes

4) Fold your laundry

5) Play with Legos

6) Walk to class or work

7) Fall asleep

8 ) Knit

9) Quilt

10) Do a jigsaw puzzle

11) Take a bath (I wouldn’t do it, but I live with someone who does)

12) Clean out your email inbox

Audiobooks are the multitasker’s delight. If you haven’t tried one yet, I would recommend the following tactic: check out 3 or 4 from the library at once because you will probably hate at least two of the narrators.

 

Read something you… ah… want to read

Look, guys. If you are going to read in 2013, read something you actually want to read! Nothing breaks my heart more than when people want to get back into reading and think a good place to start is with those classics that you kinda read in high school. Don’t do it. Start somewhere else! Re-read a favorite from the last time you read books (even if it was when you were nine). Read something brand new. Read a cult classic. Ask a librarian for a recommendation. Read a crappy romance, some fluffy chick-lit, read Twilight, it doesn’t matter. Just don’t start the year off forcing yourself through something you aren’t enjoying – get the wheels rolling first, save Gatsby for the second half of the year.

If you can pull this one off – find a book that doesn’t feel like work, that pulls you along, that calls to you from your purse or your bedside table – then the rest of these suggestions will fall into place, or you won’t need them anymore because you’ll just be reading.