What will I be posting in 2020?

In an effort to distract myself from the 24-7 coverage of the tragedy that is the Covid-19 pandemic, I have decided to do a brief overview of the books I've read since I last updated this blog in April 2019. I don't know if I will stick with this little project to completion, but hope springs eternal!

So what will this look like? Since I tend to read a lot of series, I plan to write one post for each series instead of each individual book. I will also review any standalone books that make a strong impression on me, but I am giving myself permission not to review every single book I read. No offense meant to any authors because I know that writing a book is no picnic, but I do read a lot of books that are fun but aren't deep enough to warrant the analysis of a full review -- especially by someone like me, a person who loves to read but doesn't really know how to write a proper review. 

My goal overall is to put down in writing the feeling I got from reading each book or series so I can remember if I want to read more from that particular author. If anyone else stumbles across this blog and my thoughts help them, as well, then that would be a lovely bonus!

What a crazy 12 months!

A lot has happened since I last posted to this blog in April 2019. I finally finished my college coursework (still haven't put in my request for graduation to get my associate degree, though). I passed my CPC certification exam (on my second try). My youngest daughter graduated from college and moved back home to save money for an apartment. Of course, all of this has taken a back seat to the big world event of 2020 -- the Covid-19 pandemic. As of this writing, several states have started to loosen the restrictions of the two-month-long lockdown, but most people around me are staying put.

I was already working from home and only left my house once a month before the pandemic started, so nothing much changed for me at first. My husband and the two kids still living at home are all essential workers, so our routines were normal for a while. Then, my work slowed to a crawl since the doctors I work for had to cancel almost 50% of their schedule because it was non-emergency healthcare. Suddenly I have more time to do things around the house but all I want to do is read, probably to get me away from the constant talk of the novel coronavirus.

So here I am, trying to blog about books again. This time, I have no illusions. I know that I won't get a lot of comments or make a lot of money. I'm mainly blogging so that I can offload my thoughts about the books I read because (a) I often have trouble remember which authors and series I enjoyed and why, and (b) because the few people in my life who are readers don't like romance. Who knows how long I will stick with it this time, but I feel like I need something to pull me out of this lockdown malaise.

Looking back and pushing forward in 2019

According to the Goodreads Reading Challenge, I read 175 books in 2018. Unfortunately, I only reviewed one (!) for this blog. Part of my lack of posting was down to life getting in the way (school, work, etc.) but I also struggle with the form my desire to talk about the books I read should take. What I crave most is interaction with other people about books, but where will that happen? People don't seem to comment on blogs these days, the comment section of YouTube can be a cesspool, and Facebook doesn't seem to be the place for book reviews. What's a bookish gal to do? While I'm trying to figure it all out, I am going to give writing reviews on this blog another shot, starting with the backlog of books I didn't review for 2018. If I get back into making videos, I will post links to those here, as well.

As for what I actually read in 2018, it seemed to be the Year of the Paranormal Romance for me. I discovered shifter romances and rediscovered my love of time travel romances. My time travel obsession doesn't seem to be slowing down; I spent most of today (New Year's Day 2019) reading a time travel romance about Scottish clans in the 1600s. Since these books tend to follow a certain formula, I will probably review each series as a whole rather than each individual book. So watch this space!

Sprucing up the old blog

There are changes afoot! I've been adjusting a few things with this blog, hoping to make it more accessible and make the content more compelling. Here are a few of the adjustments:

--I changed "girl" to "gal" in the blog name. I was afraid that "Average Girl Reads" would mislead readers into thinking they would find a lot of young adult book reviews here. Besides, I can still be a gal at 50, right?

--I signed up as an affiliate for Amazon and Book Depository. You may have already seen the links in some of my recent reviews. I know that book lovers in this modern age want to be able to click through and purchase a book if a review strikes their fancy, so I wanted to make it convenient for my readers. The extra affiliate pennies I earn will also help keep my coffee cup filled, which will enable me to read more books. See, it's a cycle.

--Since I know what it is like to not have an unlimited budget for books, I will include the Overdrive link for a book if it is available. It is my understanding that this is the e-book service used by a large number of public libraries, including my own. If your library uses a different service, let me know and I can try to add those links, as well.

--When Google Reader shut down years ago, I never replaced it with another RSS reader. Instead, I started following the Facebook and Twitter feeds of blogs that I really wanted to keep up with. So, in that vein, I started a Facebook fan page and a Twitter account for this blog. In those feeds, you will get notifications of when I post new reviews to the blog, of course, as well as additional random bookish thoughts I may have throughout the day.

--Lastly, I signed up with NetGalley and First to Read in an attempt to get advanced reader copies (ARCs) of upcoming releases. When I started this blog, it was partly to show love to public libraries and the backlist books. I am still all about that, but now I think it might be fun to add reviews of a few new books to spice things up. There seems to be a lot of competition for these digital galleys so I may not get very many, but I'm giving it a go.

Where do I take this blog now?

So I've developed a renewed interest in writing book reviews and have decided to revive this blog. Now, what?

I was proud of myself when I made this decision, but now I feel aimless. What books should I review? Should I join a reading challenge? Should I sign up for something like NetGalley and request advanced reader's copies? Maybe I should reach way back to the start of this blog and read more titles from "1001 Books You Must Read Before You Die"? It is tough being a person who craves structure yet bucks against it once she gets it.

Perhaps I will look through my reading lists and see if that gives me some direction. My main to-be-read list is on Goodreads and currently stands at 457 titles. This does not count my minor lists on other sites, such as my wish lists on NC Digital Library, One Click Digital, Freading, and Open Library. I also have about 50 books on my iPad. Most of the titles on these lists have been there for years; I don't want to delete them but when it comes time to read something I keep passing over them. Maybe 2017 will be the year that I clear out these lists and give myself the freedom to make fresh lists that better reflect my current interests.              

My Reading Goals for 2017

It's that time of year again when everyone talks about goals. My success with goal-setting has been hit or miss, so for the past few years, I've stuck with the Goodreads Reading Challenge. It only requires that you set the number of books you plan to read during the year. I exceeded my goal two years in a row so I got cocky and increased my goal to 100 books for 2016. Of course, that guaranteed that I wouldn't reach it; I only read 59 books last year. So this year I am going to play it safe and aim for 50 books.

Other than the Goodreads challenge, I have a vague idea about reading more broadly. I'm not setting a specific goal just yet because I know that will make me feel restricted. Last year, I took a pass at the Book Riot Read Harder Challenge and I ended up reading only one book. Most of the categories felt too heavy and serious, especially for the type of year I was having. I don't want to veer into literary fiction territory but I need to get out of the historical Christian romance genre more often. This is not a new lament for me; it was one of the reasons I started this blog years ago. I have very little success from year to year, but I keep trying.

Giving Oyster a Try

NOTE: This post is not sponsored in any way. I signed up for the service mentioned below with my own dollar.

Yesterday I finally took the leap and signed up for Oyster, the ebook service that plugs itself as the "Netflix of books". If you aren't familiar with these services (Scribd and Kindle Unlimited are two others), the premise is that you pay a monthly fee and get unlimited access to their library of ebooks. Oyster charges $9.95 a month, which isn't an outrageous sum but I can't really afford adding that to my budget right now. However, Oyster has a free trial for the summer where you can pay 99 cents for three months and then switch to the full price. That's a cheap way to satisfy my curiosity about the service, so I signed up.

One way that Oyster lives up to its advertising as the "Netflix of books" is in its selection. When you first open Oyster, you will see a lot of popular books. If you look more closely, however, you will notice that not all of them have the tiny "Unlimited" tag on them. Just as Netflix has a huge selection of movies but only a small subsection of those movies are available for streaming, not all of Oyster's books are available to read for free with your subscription. There is a toggle on the website that allows you to see only the free-to-read books, but in my experience it keeps resetting itself when I do a search. At least the one in the iPad app stays set to "Unlimited".

Speaking of the Oyster app, it is pretty but it will take a little getting used to for me. Ever since I started reading ebooks about three years ago, I've done 98% of my reading in the Kindle app. I am accustomed to having the page-turning animation and being able to read in two columns, two settings that are not available in the Oyster app. I can't make the font as large as I can in the Kindle app, either. None of these little quibbles would stop me from using the service; it's just something to get used to. One aspect of the app that I do like, though, is the front page which mimics the website with lists of top books in each category and recommendations like "21 Books to Read With Your Best Friends".

I have a shelf on Goodreads entitled "not at my library" and there are currently about 250 titles on it. I'm going through that list to get the best out of this free trial. I've already found six books from the list, which means I could stop looking now and have my money's worth. I doubt that I will continue using Oyster after my trial expires, though. If I was in the market for this kind of service, I would have to compare Oyster to the other services out there because ultimately, the best service is the one that most titles in the genres that you prefer to read.

R.I.P., Rod McKuen

I just read that poet Rod McKuen died this week. When I was going through my poetry obsession in my teens, Rod McKuen was one of the poets that I read repeatedly. So much poetry was difficult for me to understand; it was just a collection of pretty words. I enjoyed the rhythm but didn't really get the overall meaning. McKuen's work seemed more down-to-earth to me. Running across his obituary today makes me want to revisit his work and poetry in general to see if 30-odd years of life experience will bring me more understanding.

Getting rid of books is tough, even if they are virtual

I thought that paring down my wish list would be easy, but I was wrong. This week I logged onto my account with the NC Digital Library to pick a book, in keeping with my goal to read books already on my wish list. I went to the end of the list to pick from the ones that had been there the longest. Although I've been looking at the covers for months, I couldn't remember why I added some of the books to the list. Even reading the descriptions didn't help. Yet I hesitated to delete those titles. Why?  It's not like I'm tossing out physical books, so why is it so tough? 

One reason I have trouble deleting titles from my list is that I think I will want the books later and not remember the titles. This is paired with an irrational fear that I will run out of books to read. On reflection, I realize that this is silly. There are already more books in existence than I can read in a lifetime, so for every title I delete there will be others to take its place. If a book is something I am just dying to read, I will most likely remember the title without having it on a list.

I also have this guilty feeling that I'm cheating if I reach the goal of clearing my list by deleting titles instead of actually reading the books. First off, this is my "game" and my rules, so I can do anything I want. Second, I have missed so many goals and experiences in my life because I insist on handling tasks in a certain order. As it relates to my reading life, this means that I often force myself to finish books that I am no longer enjoying, instead of chucking them and moving on. It takes me twice as long to read a book that I'm not enjoying, and that cuts into my reading time. Just this week, I made myself read at least 50 pages of a book that I wasn't enjoying, even though I could tell from the introduction that the book wasn't what I thought it was. Being a stickler for self-imposed rules that aren't working is a habit I am trying to shed.

Now that I've written this post and examined my thoughts, I think I should take a look at my lists straightaway and start culling unwanted titles while I have this renewed zeal!

Bring on the 2015 Reading Goals!

There were a lot of things that didn't go my way in 2014, but the one bright spot was my reading life. I've been doing the Goodreads Reading Challenge since 2011, but 2014 was the first time I completed it. I aimed low with a goal of 25 books but I ended up reading 105 books. Huzzah! Since I am still working at the same stressful job, I expect that I will continue to turn to books as an escape. Therefore, I have set my goal for the 2015 challenge at 50 books. If I read at my 2014 speed, then I will probably hit that by June. I'm only taking two classes instead of four during the spring semester, so I may hit it even sooner.

Another thought I had about my reading life in 2015 is that there should be more diversity. For the past couple years, I've mainly read historical romances written by white female authors. Frankly, I haven't made much of an effort to read black authors because I don't want to read anything centered on race. That may sound bad considering I am a black woman, but there it is.  I read for escapism, so I want my books to be light and fun, or at the very least have a happy ending. Even when picking historical novels by white authors I avoid anything written in the Civil War era. However, after some reflection, I realize that I'm not being fair. Surely there are non-white authors that are writing books that don't center on race, and this year I intend to make more of an effort to find them.

In the name of diversity, I also want to expand to different genres this year. As I mentioned, I mainly read historical romances. To be more specific, I look for Christian romances set in the US prairie states in the late 1800s. How's that for a narrow focus? When I watch TV and movies, I am not so rigid. I watch mysteries, police procedurals, hospital dramas, sci-fi, and more. I'm not sure why I became so single-minded when it comes to selecting books. Perhaps it is the soothing nature of the Christian historical romances that appeals to me. Although I probably will continue to read many of those sorts of books, I will also challenge myself to read other books that may give me the same sense of calm in other genres.

I hope that all of you meet your reading goals in 2015!

Touching base with my January 2014 goals

In one of my January posts, I set two goals for myself:  to read at least 25 books this year, and to read at least five of the books stored on my iPad. Although I have a dismal history of not completing goals, I actually managed to complete these two well before the end of the year! As of this writing, I have completed 72 books, and 10 of them were from the stash of books in my Kindle app.

While I am happy that I finally met my goals, I also feel a little guilty in claiming success. No matter how hard I try, I am still having trouble shaking the feeling that my preference for genre fiction over literary fiction makes my accomplishment less impressive. At least 90% of the books I read this year were historical romances. This has been a stressful year (difficult new job for me, loss of job for my husband) and historical romances calm my nerves and help me escape. However, novels in this genre tend to be quick reads for me; I can usually finish one in two days. Is completing 72 of these books really an accomplishment compared to someone who finished "War and Peace" and "Moby Dick" in the same year?

Of course, I can always look at this from another angle. Part of the reason that I wanted to read more books was to vary my activities. It is the same reason that I want to do more knitting and devote my time to learning other skills instead of always reverting to playing iPad games and watching TV during my free time -- I want to keep my mind more active with a variety of activities. When viewed from that angle, I'm not sure that it matters what I read. Some people say that the best exercise is the exercise you will actually do. Perhaps the same thing applies to books, in that the best books are the ones you will actually read.

No messy heroines for me

Last week I made a discovery while reading a book entitled Looking for La La: I have trouble with stories that have a messy protagonist. When I say "messy", I'm talking about a lead character who can't seem to pull his or her life together to the point. The heroine of this book, Cathy, was a stay-at-home mum who wasn't much of a housekeeper or a cook. She wasn't very good at the parenting bits like keeping up with the kids' field trips and such. Up to this point, I could identify with her. However, she also had a penchant for lying for no good reason and drinking every day to the point of falling down. The lying and the drinking, combined with the other stuff, made me wonder what Cathy's husband and friends actually see in her. The sloppiness is meant

A protagonist doesn't have to be perfect for me to read a book. However, since I read for enjoyment, I want to see a messy protagonist discover more about herself and start to make positive changes. With Looking for La La, the story ended happily but I never got the feeling that Cathy learned anything. Her lies got her in trouble a lot throughout the story, but everyone forgives her in the end without her really doing anything to earn it. All her friends have major life moments all around her, but Cathy ends up where she started with a messy house and no job.

I guess what I'm saying is that I like to see growth in the main character. Even though I know that the books I choose are escapist , it is still encouraging to me when the characters find their way. Stories of growth and redemption, however unrealistic, make me optimistic about improving aspects of my own life.

Taking stock of my 2013 reading and plans for 2014

I said that I wasn't going to do the traditional year-end wrap-up post this year because I haven't done much reading or posting on this blog. However, I am a person who genuinely feels energized by the start of a new year. I've been cleaning house and organizing and making plans. Even though I know that three months from now I will have thrown all my plans out the window, I still embrace this period of energy and extra optimism. Who knows? This might be the year that I actually accomplish a few of my goals.

To look back at my reading in 2013, I didn't have to go any further than Goodreads. I joined the site's reading challenge last March and set a goal of 25 books for the year. Sadly, I only completed 19. When I wasn't busy with my full course load of online classes from the local community college, I fell victim to my usual triad of temptations: computer, iPad games, and TV.

Another weakness of mine is planning instead of doing. The way this relates to my reading in 2013
is that I downloaded 90+ ebooks from Amazon last year but have only read two of them so far. Yet I keep downloading free ebooks whenever I see them. Going through my lists on Goodreads falls into this category, too. I can spend hours reading through my TBR list, deleting books that I no longer want to read, and cross-checking the library to see if they have gotten in any of the books I put on my "not at my library" list. All of this is reading-adjacent behavior and fools me into feeling like I've actually read a book.

Enough of the look back -- onto the look forward! I've mentioned several times before that setting goals is a fruitless endeavor for me, but at this time of year I can't resist doing it. So here are my reading goals for 2014:

--To read 25 books by the end of the year.
--To read at least five of the ebooks on my iPad.

I could think of a whole lot more, but with my history of not sticking to goals I thought I should keep the list short. The ebooks goal should be easy to meet since the majority of the books are romances, which tend to be quick reads. Considering I am taking classes again this semester (which starts in a week) and possibly starting a new job, I don't think I will have time to read any dense literary fiction. Wish me luck!

Is your library like this?

I was browsing book-related channels on YouTube because I might start doing videos myself, and I ran across this one by Leena on the channel Just Kiss My Frog. I'm not sure if I agree fully with Leena's attitudes, but I had to share it. Basically, it is a rant about how her local library has turned into a community center instead of a place where you can find books. I've heard of libraries doing this to attract more patrons and justify their funding. With the advent of e-readers, many libraries have turned into way-stations where you can use the internet or find a meeting space for a club rather than actually having shelves and shelves of physical books.

To be honest, I haven't spent an extended amount of time in my local library branches in quite a while. We've developed a routine wherein I request whatever books the family wants online and my husband goes to pick them up on Tuesdays. Between my husband's work schedule and the reduced hours the library instituted a few years ago, finding time to browse shelves in the library is difficult. From what I can tell online, however, I don't think that our library system has decreased the amount of books available. They have managed to add newer genres like graphic novels without completely eliminating the classics.

One statement Leena made at the beginning of the video did ring true with me. She said that her local library used to seem like magic to her, and I remember having a similar feeling as a kid. Generally, I am a person who looks forward and believes that my kids have more advantages than I had, but this is one area where I think they are missing out. They haven't had the experience of roaming through the library and picking books at random. I discovered so many authors because I had the time to browse the shelves, pick a book, and then sit down and read a few pages before I took it home to see if it was to my liking. My kids just seem to read whatever I or their teachers recommend rather than browsing and discovering books for themselves. For them, a library that is more of a community center might be appealing.

QUESTION: Is your public library more of a home for books or a community meeting place?

Have I outgrown the library book sale?

Yesterday I went to the Gaston County Public Library book sale for the first time about 10 years. I used to go to the book sale every year but stopped going when my husband ABM was going through his de-cluttering phase. He has never been much of a reader so it didn't make sense to him to have all these books in the house. So I went along with him, got rid of a lot of books, and stopped going to the book sale.

Then a couple weeks ago I decided to fire up the record player and listen to some of my vinyl LPs. In flipping through my collection, it occurred to me that most of my vinyl had come from one of the library's book sales. Years ago when they made the switch from vinyl to CDs, I swooped in and bought several of their Broadway cast albums. That same week I happened to notice a tweet from the library about the upcoming book sale. I started feeling that old excitement and decided to go. ABM dropped me off yesterday with $25 and a request for home improvement books.

First thing I realized is that after all these years, people are still standing in line for the book sale. For some reason I thought the interest would have died down. I should have remembered that most readers like to own books, not just borrow them. It was so crowded that patrons were helping each other find books. I was standing on one side of a table and heard a couple of pensioners mention that they were looking for Danielle Steele books, so I just pulled them out and handed them over. That was happening all over the room. Also, I saw people walking out with lots of cool books just as I was walking in. If I decide to go again next year, I need to get up early and stand in line!

Ultimately, I didn't see anything that jumped out at me, but I did buy a few items. I spent $9.75 and came away with 14 books, a single album, and a 4-album set. Most of those books were for my husband and kids. As for me, I'm wondering if my time for shopping at the book sale for myself has passed. I generally prefer novels, cookbooks, and needlework books published before 1970, and those types of books are harder to come by these days. When I do see them, they are priced significantly higher that $1 for a hardback. Most of the books I saw yesterday were published in the 1980s and 1990s. Since I grew up in that era, those books hold little attraction for me. Many of them were also titles that I know the library still has copies of, so it doesn't make sense to me to own them. I considered buying a few more classics, but our kids don't look to our bookshelf when they get bored the way I did when I was a kid. They go online and read manga or free e-books on sites like Wattpad.

Despite not finding what I want, I still recommend library book sales as a fun way to support your local library. If you live in my area (and you know who you are), you have until Saturday to hit up our local sale. They put out new books every morning so it is still worth it to go even if you missed the first day of the sale. Check it out and tell me what you got!

What is your "website of record"?

A few weeks ago I was looking for some French reading materials online when I ran across the phrase "newspaper of record". That wasn't the first time I had heard that phrase, but running across it again made me think about it in a new way. (By the way, I'm using the secondary definition of the phrase, which is a newspaper that is considered to have high journalistic standards and is referred to as a reliable source by most of the reading public.) With print newspapers shutting down and people getting much of their news from the internet, I think we need a new phrase. The first one that came to mind for me was "website of record".

I rarely read our local paper or watch the news on TV, so when I hear someone mention a news event in passing -- this week, it was the fertilizer plant explosion in Texas -- I look online to get the details. My first choice is CNN.com because if it is something that has hit the national news, they will have it right on the front page. When you click through to the story, there will be updates with time stamps. I trust this site because the TV network that started it has been around for ages and is often quoted as a trusted source. Sometimes CNN lets me down. One of the most publicized incidences was when Michael Jackson died, and TMZ was reporting details of his death for hours while CNN and other traditional news outlets were still saying it was a rumor. I like to think that happened because CNN was waiting until they got solid information before reporting Jackson's death as fact. That makes them look more trustworthy in my eyes.

When it comes to news, do you have a particular website that you trust most?

Non-journalists use Google Reader, too

One point I keep reading in the articles about Google Reader shutting down is that it is probably a good idea because only journalists were using it, anyway. The idea is that regular folks like me would rather get our news through social networks by reading articles that our friends share and promote. It may be true that many of us get our news that way, but I never thought of Google Reader as a newsreader.

I use Google Reader to keep up with updates to my favorite blogs. The authors of these blogs aren't writing news articles. They are sharing stories about their kids or the books they read or the latest knitting projects they completed. There are other regular folk like me who used Google Reader the same way. I've already heard from two friends in the week since the announcement, asking me what app or website I was planning to export my feeds to.

Because journalists think that only other journalists will miss Google Reader, the suggestions they have been giving in their articles have not necessarily matched the way my friends and I use the service. I've been seeing a lot of recommendations for magazine-style apps like Flipboard and Google Currents. While both of those apps are pretty and a fun way to browse my Twitter and Facebook feeds, as well as news feeds like USA Today and All Things D, they don't feel like an efficient way to keep up on blogs.

I have Flipboard installed on my iPad now. It is a thing of beauty and I get a kick out of seeing my friends' photos blown up as if they are on a magazine cover. However, as I am flipping through the app, I always feel as though I am missing some people's posts. For my blogs, I would prefer a simple list of read and unread posts that I can drill down through. Through a little experimentation, I have found that several of the pretty magazine-style readers can be tweaked to give me a list. Some of them even make it easy to see what posts have already been read. So, with a little work, we non-journalists can still have something of the blog-reading experience we want.

Will I miss Google Reader? Probably not

The news that Google Reader shutting down in July came as something of a relief to me. I know that this isn't the normal response. There are many people who still use Google Reader on a daily basis to keep up with the various blogs that they follow. I was one of those people once but now I don't think I will miss it.

I migrated over to Google Reader from another RSS reader (Bloglines?) over five years ago. This was before I became an avid user of Twitter and Facebook. Reading blogs over coffee was part of my morning routine, and I felt like I was staying informed. However, it was too easy for me to add more and more RSS feeds to follow. Pretty soon, looking at my account did nothing but induce guilt because it was filled with blog posts and articles that I didn't have time to read. Of course, I could pare the list down and made it more manageable, but that is difficult for a digital hoarder like me. I always think the bloggers will notice that I have unsubscribed from their feeds and their feelings will be hurt. Silly, huh?

Anyway, the shutting down of Google Reader will be a relief because it takes the choice away from me. I can declare feed bankruptcy and not feel guilty about it. I downloaded the Flipboard app for my iPad and so far it seems like a quicker way for me to skim the headlines. Hopefully I will resist the urge to load it up with too many feeds.

Picking a vacation reading list

It may sound strange to some, but I like to spend my vacation doing more of what I like to do at home. When I am on a cruise, I am disconnected from television and the internet. Without those temptations, I get much more reading done. Typically the older ladies like to shop, the teens run around with other teens, and my husband and his pals do something physical like snorkeling or parasailing. That leaves me alone in a deck chair with a book, a cup of coffee, and my knitting.  Paradise!

I tend to take two books with me, one fiction and one nonfiction, and finish them both before I get home. On a couple cruises I actually had to borrow a book from the ship's library because I finished my own books early. Now that I have a Galaxy Tab and an iPhone, I can carry many more books with me.

So what am I taking with me? My original plan was to restrict myself to e-books to reduce the weight of my bag. However, I have a paperback copy of The Winter of Our Disconnect: How Three Totally Wired Teenagers (and a Mother Who Slept with Her iPhone)Pulled the Plug on Their Technology and Lived to Tell the Tale and I think it would be a perfect book for me to read on vacation. It is not lost on me that I am going to read a book about being disconnected from technology while I am away from my own tech.

Reading the first few pages of that book reminded me that there are a few classics I haven't read. Well, there are a lot of classics that I haven't read, but there are a few that seem to be haunting me. These days I can't go a week without hearing a mention of Thoreau's Walden and Fitgerald's The Great Gatsby. My library has an unlimited check-out time for e-book editions of classics, so I may see if I can put copies of those books on my tablet.

I'm also planning to pack a few audio books. I didn't get a chance to finish Naughty in Nice so I am going to listen to that on the drive down to FL. I will be disappointed if the reader doesn't have a British accent. I'm also giving in to the new hotness and taking Gone Girl with me. A few podcasters have suggested that experiencing this story via audio book is the best way to go since there are two points of view.

That is five books, not counting what I've got sitting on my tablet from free promotions and whatnot. Of course, I know I won't finish all these books but I want to have plenty of choice in case one or two of them turn out to be a yawn.

My new library shelf

My library shelf
Originally uploaded by daniinnc2010

My husband ABM has been on a DIY kick for the past several weeks. One of his projects was to refurbish our bedside tables. Once mine was finished, I decided to use the bottom shelf for library books. Yes, every book in that shot came from the library. Up until now we were keeping them in a canvas bag or a milk crate. I think this is a better option because it helps me keep track of all the books we have out and let's the kids browse the selection more easily.

What I really wanted you guys to see is how many library books we have out at any one time. There are three books missing from that shot, for a total of 29 books. That may seem like a lot until you know a bit more about our reading habits. My kids will read the graphic novels in an afternoon. The same goes for my husband and me with the how-to books; knitting books, cookbooks, and home renovation books don't take long for us to flip through. As for the novels, the kids will read the ones they like in a couple days and reject the rest. By the end of next week, half the books on the shelf will have been returned to the library and replaced by new selections.

The books that will be on the shelf the longest are novels I checked out for myself. I can flip through the nonfiction books while I'm watching TV, but starting a novel takes more concentration. Once I get past my distractions (screens and kids, mainly) and get about 50 pages in, I can usually breeze through a book. However, I often have trouble jumping from one novel directly into the next so then there is a waiting period. For instance, I finished a steampunk novel last week and it took me five days to clear the mood and style of that world out of my head enough to be able to read the modern romance I started today. I used to be able to make that switch much more quickly when I was younger as I see my kids do now. Perhaps it is an age thing. I'm fighting the senile dementia, one book at a time!