Thursday, February 15, 2018

My Reading Life


I love to read, but I have a quirky, sometimes contradicting reading life.

I despise twaddle, however, it does find its way onto my to-read list and I always feel unsatisfied.  I find myself delightfully stuck in time periods and places for long periods of time (WWII England).  I love to read cookbooks as well as other nonfiction books.  I do not read many popular novels, nor do I want to read anything mysterious, very depressing, or in the fantasy genre, although I will tolerate some fantasy.  (I loved My Lady Jane by Cynthia Hand). I have adopted the notion that I do not have to finish a book if I do not like the book, liberating!  Although, I do finish books that I might not start out enjoying if I think they might have hope for a redeeming ending.  I try to read books that are online through my library or can be bought for a couple dollars with my Kindle.  I love paper books most, but the convenience of the Kindle wins!  Sometimes I find an author that I enjoy and then try to read everything that I can from that author. (Barbara Pym, Gene Stratton Porter, Georgette Heyer)

If I could change anything about my reading life... Sometimes I read 6 books and then find myself in a dry spell, as the TV beckons (The Crown, Victoria anyone?)  It would be nice to be more consistent, however, the dry spells do not last too long as I cannot resist adding books to my GoodReads Want-to-Read shelf, which taunts me!

I also find myself reading 4 or 5 books at one time.  This frustrates me about myself.  It takes me longer to read a book that way.  Thankfully the library has a 22-day check-out that I must obey, so I give those books priority. 

Three books that I have really enjoyed lately are The Blue Castle by L.M. Montgomery, Cluney Brown by Margery Sharp, and The War That Saved My Life/The War I Finally Won by Kimberly Brubaker Bradley. All delightful reads!

One book that  I hated was The Versions of Us by Laura Barnett.  The concept was good, I guess.  The author writes the book from 3 different timelines depending on how the characters would have turned out if they had made different choices.  The format was confusing, alternating between the storylines was difficult. I almost gave up at 40%.   And on top of it all, the story was depressing and did not end well.  Sigh.

My goal is to read 50 books again this year.  Finding 50 worthwhile books that fit my quirky tastes will be difficult, but I will have a lot of fun trying!

2 comments:

  1. Hoi Jen, I really enjoy reading (two or three books in a week). Bu a boring book I return the same week to the library. I also love picture books for children. So nice. Peter Rabbit for example. When you love war books, second world war, you should read: "Snow on the Tulips", by Liz Tolsma (WWII England/The Netherlands)

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  2. What a great post! I love books, or maybe I should say, I love owning books, but rarely sit down to read. Unfortunately, facebook & google distract me, but I'm working on change. I do try to chuck a book if it just doesn't seem great, but often hang on till the bitter end hoping for that redeeming quality and wondering why a friend suggested it, but it is freeing to just give up sometimes. :) 50 books in a year is quite the goal, I could never, I read too slow or I read a couple of pages and fall asleep. Books are just so relaxing, I guess. hahaha.

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