I have been tracking my book consumption via Pinterest boards for a number of years now. If you read last year's post, you know 2017 was a great reading year for me. I usually read between 15-27 books; in 2017, I read thirty-one books, including a few hefty classics. Not too shabby.
So it is with immense pride and astonishment that I can say that in 2018... I read... wait for it...
67 BOOKS!!!
See the full Pinterest record here.
Considering I started the year with a list of about fifteen titles to read, I'd say I met the goal quite well. So, if your 2019 resolutions involve more reading, here are my tips to take your reading to the next level!
1. Read the classics.
Reading classics is like weight lifting for the brain. After grappling with archaic words, complex sentence structures, translation idiosyncrasies, and just more pages in general in a classic, you will be amazed how blazingly fast you can rip through a modern novel. Also, the classics are classics for a reason: they are GOOD. They are rewarding to read, which in turn makes you want to read more: a great self-reinforcing loop. While there is plenty of modern fiction I love, there is also plenty that just leaves me feeling "meh" about it. That rarely happens to me with a classic book.
2. Have a reading routine.
My morning routing is to get up, make a cup of coffee, and sit with my book until my coffee is gone (or even longer, depending on how hungry the kids are for breakfast ;-) ). At night, reading is part of that last hour before bed when I'm winding down for the night (the actual amount of winding down may vary, depending on the book!) Tying a new habit to other events in the day is a great way to get established.
3. Always have the next title ready
I have a little stockpile of "Emergency Reading" books: things I'm interested in reading, but don't feel very urgent about. This is great if you finish a book and can't get to the library or bookstore right away. Don't be left stranded without a book! Nowadays, I borrow around three titles at a time when I go to the library, so I haven't had to crack into the Emergency Reading pile for several months.
4. Spend some time figuring out what you want to read.
Make the most of your trips to the library-- do a little research first! While some of my favorite books were discovered by accident, many more were ones that I deliberately searched for based off recommendations. I keep a running list of titles I want to read and revisit it every so often to keep it fresh in my mind, so that I can snag the books if I see them in the 50-cent book pile- that has happened several times!- and avoid aimlessly wandering the library stacks in a fit of decision paralysis. Lists such as BBC's 100 Books You Need to Read Before You Die (I've read 43 :-D) or blogs like Modern Mrs. Darcy are great places to get ideas.
5. Choose what you DON'T DO
As a homeschooling mom of three young children who teaches music four days a week and takes care of about 95% of the household chores, I see everything as an opportunity cost. It is physically impossible for me to do everything. When I choose to engage in one activity, I am saying "no" to another. So if you are serious about getting more reading in your life, you will have to decrease in other areas. I do not play games on my phone. I don't use social media, except for a quick visit to facebook every day. I don't clean my floors as often as I should. And all this carves out time for reading. On the other hand, I could have probably read well over a hundred books this year, but I usually chose to spend about an hour playing video games most nights after the kids were in bed. Choices, choices!
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Now for my top books of 2018!
There were a ton of great reads on my list this year (somewhere in June, I decided to make this the year of the Great American Novel), but my top 3 are as follows:
1. The Sound and the Fury
This is a book unlike any other I've ever read. Seen through the eyes four different characters (the first being a mentally handicapped man-- hoo boy, that is fun), it chronicles the decline of a once-great Southern family over the course of twenty years or so. There is SO MUCH to this book. This may be the only book that upon finishing I immediately flipped back to the beginning to read it through again. There's so much you miss the first time around, it's mind-blowing. I loved this book so much, I can't wait to try more Faulkner.
2. World War Z
There is something my brain just loves about stories told from multiple narrators, because this is another one! Told as a set of survivor interviews from the world-wide zombie apocalypse in the near future. I actually read this a couple years ago and liked it so much that I gave it another read this year. Still just as fun!-- as long as I don't think too hard about how impossible zombies are to begin with. ;-)
3. The Odyssey
Who knew a 2-800-year-old story could be so much fun? Totes worth the read. The Fagles version is so vibrant and energetic, and I might have fallen in love a little with Odysseus, Telemachus, Nestor, and Eumaeus. The annotations left me really itching to read The Iliad and catch up on all the epic events that happened before we find Odysseus on the island of Calypso (2019 reading list, here we come!).
Honorable mention goes to The Immortal Life of Henrietta Lacks, The Catcher in the Rye, and Jane Eyre.
BONUS!
Favorite audio books: A Man Called Ove by Fredrik Bachman and A Great Reckoning by Louise Penny.
Now, of course, when you read sixty-seven books, you're bound to run into a few stinkers. Here are my least favorite reads of 2018:
1. The Power
I had high hopes for this one. A world where the balance of power is suddenly flipped, with women now in advantage? What a great way to explore gender, politics, fairness, and power dynamics in work and family life! Sadly, this story has all the nuance of a bowling ball, with zero character development. Ironically, the only likable character in this story is a man.
2. Good As Gone
A real icky-feeling thriller that would be three times as thrilling if the "surprise" conclusion wasn't made super obvious about a third of the way into the book. If you are into cults, pedophilia, multiple personality disorders, and wondering where Clark Kent goes every time Superman appears, this is the book for you.
3. I Am Legend
This is one of those rare times when the movie is way, way better than the book. I did not know that I Am Legend is a novella, about ninety pages long, until I got to a very confusing page 105 and realized that it was stuck into an anthology of the author's short stories. What I thought was a mind-blowing halfway point of the story was actually... the end. I actually liked a lot of elements in the book, but the movie takes it in a completely different direction, so it feels a lot like two different stories. And the movie story, while less philosophically deep, is simply better. Not to mention, the rest of the book's short stories are weird and unenjoyable.
4. Moby Dick
Stay with me here. Moby Dick is a classic, with brilliant essay chapters here and there. However, there is a whole lot of NOTHING happening in the book, and everything you never wanted to know about the 1850's whaling industry. Maybe it's because I read a lot of this during lunch breaks at an out-of-town conference, and the gratuitous descriptions of dying, bleeding, thrashing whales and stripping and rendering the oily, rancid blubber left me throwing up in my mouth a little. Maybe it's because in a 555-page book, you don't encounter the actual White Whale until page 535. Maybe I'm just an ignorant, uncultured swine. Whatever the reason, this book falls squarely into the Not Worth It category for me. For the time it took me to slog through this one behemoth book, I could have read two or three that I actually enjoyed. Watch the movie.
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So what's on the horizon for me in 2019? I have no expectation of matching 2018's numbers, but I am doing the MMD 2019 book challenge, so I'm planning on reading at least a dozen. :-D So far, here is what I want to read:
The Iliad
Les Miserables
Gulp by Mary Roach (one of my favorite authors!)
Middlemarch
A Confederacy of Dunces
Night by Elie Wiesel
The Art of the Pie
Not a terribly long list, but I am excited about every single one of them! Good luck to you and your reading goals this year!
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