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I can't talk about what I am reading because that's a whole lot of nothing at the moment. The reasons are varied but can largely be summed to a busy couple of weeks and no pressing library due dates. Most of all, I'm giving myself a break and cutting myself some slack. I've looked back over the past couple of years of reading and I've made some discoveries about my reading patterns and what I can sum it up with this - the more I try to structure my reading the less I will read.
I love reading challenges. I love looking at the lists that people make for them. I love the community that surrounds them. What I don't like is eading for them. I am a mood reader and I want to read what I am in the mood for and that is it. It might the book at the bottom of the list or more often a book that's not even on my list at all.
Plenty of people, like Rebecca Reads, experience success with lists. She has lots of lists and challenges on the go and is really enjoying them. (And if I hadn't just said that I'm not doing any more challenges I'd be very tempted by the Winter Holiday Reading Challenge.)
I have reading challenges, at least one of which I started in 2006, that I still have not finished. I keep being torn between finishing the darned things and completely forgetting them. I've reset "deadlines" for them over and over, each time with the best of intentions, but then I look at the list and I freeze. Worst of all I find many, many things to do with my time other than read. As Heather at Book Addiction says it can be daunting, which she found out as she prepared for a challenge earlier this fall.
Typing all of them out like that is a little daunting, I’m not gonna lie. But logically I know that I can easily read 8 books in a month if I push myself, and I want to hit 100 this year anyway, so it shouldn’t be too difficult to finish this list.
Yes, I could read the amount of books required to finish my challenges several times over but it has to be those books. A couple of months ago, during a fit of "going-to-do-it-ness" I gathered up all the books that I needed to read and piled them by my bed. It included all the books I had to read for challenges, that were only loan from a friend, that I had been given review copies of. It was, quite simply, daunting. It wasn't one pile but three. And really all that happened was that they gathered a whole lot of dust. I had thought it would help because I've seen others revel in their book stacks.
Danielle at a Work in Progress is someone who is able to make book piles and read her way through them. Her post is what made me decide to start my own pile.
There are still books I want to read and will start at some point (books for two reading challenges and then there's still Anna Karenina), but rather than just picking up a book at whim (this may be harder than I think) and starting it, I can't start a new book without first finishing at least one (or preferably two) books that are on these piles.
As you can see she's knocked off a few of those books since that post. And she has rules. Sigh. I just don't work that way when it comes to reading.
So I've decided - no more challenges and no more lists, except of course the list of books I've read (I am *not* giving up my spreadsheet). I'll still drool over challenges and other people's book stacks but they are not for me anymore. The books I read will be the ones on my personal shelves that are screaming at me or the ones due back at the library soonest. That's really how I've been reading anyway, but now I can do it guilt-free. Now the only question is, what am I going to do when I get the urge to make that list and join that challenge?
Contributing Editor Sassymonkey blogs at Sassymonkey and Sassymonkey Reads.
