I managed the first bit okay(ish), but I totally failed at the second part. I started off super keen, photographing all the books I was reading and writing what I thought would be the first of a series of monthly blog posts (haha). I didn't blog about books again until August, but I kept track of my reading all the way through spring and most of the summer.
I bought books from my local bookshop, and second hand. I borrowed them from the library and from my mum.
I read books in bed first thing in the morning (sometimes with a cat for company)...
... while eating breakfast...
... on trains, in cafes, on lazy summer afternoons...
... just before bed, and late at night when I couldn't sleep.
I read fun books and boring books, old faves and new discoveries, some I absolutely adored and some which were so terrible that I'm baffled as to why they are (apparently) so popular.
I kept a draft blog post running with photos and a list of the books I'd been reading. Then when I discovered the joys of audiobooks in the summer I dutifully took screenshots of each book I started, still thinking "I'll get round to blogging about these sometime soon!"
My enthusiasm for reading waxed and waned through the year but at no point did I actually feel excited to blog about what I was reading. It gradually dawned on me that this was because I don't actually enjoy blogging about books that much and the act of keeping track of everything I was reading was sucking a lot of the joy out of the process.
For neatness though, I've had a think and tallied the books I read from June to December. Excluding the books I've forgotten about, all the books I started but gave up on and the many many books which I keep meaning to finish but just not getting round to, I read The Uncommon Reader by Alan Bennett , The Watchmaker of Filigree Street by Natasha Pulley, The Cuckoo's Calling, The Silkworm & Career of Evil by Robert Galbraith, The Other Mrs Walker by Mary Paulson-Ellis, and The Midwich Cuckoos by John Wyndham.
I also listened to How to Stop Time by Matt Haig, The Keeper of Lost Things by Ruth Hogan, Rack, Ruin & Murder by Ann Granger, Death Descends on Saturn Villa by M. R. Kasasian, A Study in Brimstone & The Hell-Hound of the Baskervilles by G. S. Denning, Tales from the Dead of Night: 13 Classic Ghost Stories, Origin by Dan Brown, Murder by Sarah Pinborough, one of the volumes of The Time Traveller's Almanac, and La Belle Sauvage by Phillip Pullman.
So (along with the 13 books I read earlier in the year), that's about 31 books in total for 2017. Not a particularly impressive number but definitely a lot more than I read in 2016.
I don't know how many books I'll end up reading (or listening to) this year. I hope it's more than 31 but it might well be less. Either way, I definitely won't be blogging about them!
Please note: the Amazon links in this post are affiliate links, so if you click through and end up buying something (anything!) on Amazon during that session I get a very small payment for the referral.
Making promises on our blogs helps keeping them but sometimes it's just not our thing - I rarely blog about anything else but crafting, even though my two most popular posts are about real life stories. About reading - it's disturbing but I don't read so much lately and this is bad. I mostly buy books for Kindle and some of them are really worth it. I also re-read old books. I'm not prepared to blog about it, though.
ReplyDeleteI keep track on Goodreads.com That way if I don't feel like writing about it, at least I have a way of keeping track of what I've read (not so much in 2017).
ReplyDeleteI would use Goodreads to keep a track of your books.
ReplyDeleteYou either like writing about books or you don’t. If you are not careful it becomes like schoolwork and a chore. That is why my book blog has developed and changed over the years, fundamentally about books and crafts but not necessarily every book I read.
bairozan - yeah, I thought blogging about what I was reading would help motivate me to read more but I'm not sure it helped at all! Ah well, it was worth a try :)
ReplyDeleteMonica & josbookjourney - lots of people have recommended Goodreads to me! I am always wary of signing up for new websites though, I'm trying hard to spend less time on the internet (doing things like reading books!) not more. I might keep a little list in the back of my diary instead :)