💬Friday Thread🧵: What Are You Watching? & How Do You Make (or Keep) Your Reading Life Fun?
Plus What Did You Read This Week? 📚
Hello! Happy Friday! Before we talk about what we’ve been reading and watching lately, I’d like to say that my thoughts are with those in Florida who’ve had to deal with Hurricane Milton this week. I know I speak for the whole community here in saying we hope you, your family, your house, and your communities are ok as clean up and rebuilding efforts begin❤️
This week I’ve taken a bit of a break from posting content, not only to allow you to catch up on posts, but because I’m also working behind the scenes gathering and linking data for my upcoming ultimate reader recommendations Listed newsletter. I’m including not only people who’ve given me direct recommendations, but I’m also doing deep research and listening to a variety of podcasts to gather recommendations from celebrities, authors, and publishing insiders. If you know me, you know I love to find under the radar gems and backlist books you may not have heard about or have forgotten, so the research has been so fun. However, I want it to be super accessible, so linking all the books and adding photos is taking longer than expected. I’m excited for the end product- 100 readers share more than 100 book recommendations (often with thoughts)! Part will be available for all subscribers, but if you’d like to access the full list of recommendations now would be a great time to upgrade to paid and it will be delivered right to your inbox when I release it.
Today’s questions are inspired by the fact that I’ve had a great week of tv watching, as well as the fact that I’ve been seeing quite a bit of chatter in the book world lately about people being frustrated with their reading lives. This makes me sad because reading is ultimately something that we hope brings joy to our lives. Joy in reading certainly means something different for every single reader. One reader might find joy in being challenged by their reading; whereas, another reader might find joy in escaping from their day to day lives. I’d like us to offer each other ideas or strategies for keeping or making (if you’re new to reading for fun or returning after time off of reading) our reading lives fun. If the word “fun” doesn’t feel right, think enjoyable:)
Ways I Keep My Reading Life Fun
Talking about books with others is one of my biggest tips for making and keeping reading fun. I’m in in person books clubs, but what’s been the single biggest factor in improving my reading life in the past 8 years is being active in the online book communities. Book blogging, Bookstagram, and now Substack are treasure troves of book people just waiting to talk about the books they’ve read and want to read. It does take putting yourself out there a bit, ask someone you admire a book questions, comment on their post, send them a dm or email. Start small but just start!
Buddy reading a book with a friend. It’s fun to talk about the book as we go and also at the end. It’s an especially fun conversation if we have vastly different feelings and opinions
Adding the element of surprise into my reading- I often go to the library or bookstore and decide to read a book based only on the cover, title, or blurbs on front. This works great for me when I focus on “staff picks” or “shelf talkers” and I can read a bit about what a librarian or bookseller thought about the book, but I then start the book not knowing what it’s about or where it might potentially be going
Giving myself limited options on what to read if I’m feeling overwhelmed by choices. I’ll often decide for the week or the month to choose books from only my print to be read shelves at home, or only from my Netgalley shelf which are ebooks on my kindle. Or limit my choices to a certain genre or theme. This month I gave paid subscribers a prompt to read books with fall vibes for October as a way to simply our reading and make it fun. Another way I limit my options is deciding on a priority tbr for the week or month, so maybe I’m choosing 5 books I’ve been really wanting to read and then starting at the top of the list and reading to see if it feels like a good fit for my mood
This brings me to one of my favorite ways of keeping my reading life fun- sample, sample, sample. I’ll often gather 3-5 books and either read or listen to the first chapter and see what I think. Some people sample by giving themselves a set number of pages, I tend to go off my initial feelings and vibes and ask myself some questions after I’ve read or listened for a bit. For example, am I intrigued enough to keep going, are there any characters I find at all compelling, and do I care enough to keep going? If yes, it goes in the yes pile and I continue sampling with the next book. I will typically have a winner within the 3-5 selections, but if not I choose another set of books
I stopped setting a number goal for my reading. I should preface this by saying years ago when I first started writing and talking about books online, setting a number goal via the Goodreads Challenge was a great way for me to stay motivated and keep on a consistent reading pace. But a few years ago I came to the conclusion it was adding unneeded “stress” to my reading life and causing me to feel (self-inflicted) pressure to read more and faster. I love to read and I don’t want those feelings. You might find that having a reading goal is helpful and motivating and if so, that’s great, reader know thyself right!
Question Time…..The questions I ask in weekly threads are meant to be fun and help us connect, so please know you don’t have to answer each question, if you only have the time/desire to answer one, great! Please put book titles IN ALL CAPS for easy reading:)
What have you been watching? (and what do you think about it?)
How do you make (or keep) your reading life fun?
What did you read this week? (or planning on reading this weekend?)
Have a great weekend! 📚
This week I binged every current episode of the new season of Love is Blind! I stayed up until 1:30am on Sunday night😅 then I watched all of the new episodes Wednesday- oh my did the tide turn and things are getting messy! I've watched all seasons of the US version of this show and I have to say I've seen some couples with amazing love stories go on to get married so I think it can work- more so than The Bachelor/Bachelorette. This current season is much better than the last one. I'm feeling very invested in certain people and I love the fact that this show shows hard conversations surrounding finances, religion, politics, etc. After one episode this week I'm also feeling very smug that I raised young men who know how to boil water🤣.
I'm also watching The Golden Bachelorette and I cannot tell you how much I love this show. I've cried every single episode but also I've laughed and finished ever episode with a smile. Seeing older people putting themselves out there for a second chance at love is heartwarming, but with this show I'm also thoroughly enjoying seeing the friendships between the men. They literally love each other, support and wncourage each other and have said the friendships they've made there have changed their lives. If you watch no other episodes of this, at least give this week's episode 4 a watch, The Chippendale dancers were on (yes please:) and then the guys on the group date had to put on their own show in front of a live audience (all proceeds went to cancer charity) and it was so good and so funny. Kudos to these men for really putting themselves out there, it was inspiring and just fun to watch
Ok reading wise- I finished reading THE MIGHT RED by Louise Erdrich and while I'm really glad I read it, it was just ok in the end for me. I love a love triangle which was one of the storylines that drew me into this story. I also love a book where there's a local bookstore and the town's people stop in and there's plenty of book talk to go around. I really enjoyed the mystical/spiritual aspect to many parts of her writing, especially regarding nature and our impact on the environment. I learned a lot about the history of pesticides and what's been done to farming and our food supply- for all these reasons I was compelled and interested throughout the story and for the first 40% I was sitting at a solid 4 star rating. However, the second half of the story started to feel like Erdrich wasn't quite sure which storylines to focus on. It felt more scattered and a bit repetitive to the point that the plot began to feel slow and circular to me. Granted, I tend to like plot a lot, so I realize this feeling may just be my personal preference. I do enjoy a small town story and you get that here, along with a look at a culture different from my own which I also really appreciated. As for the love triangle, it fizzled for me, I think because it was so dragged out and lacked tension. This is a hard one to review because I liked a lot about it, but in the end I'm sitting at probably a 3.25 star rating. As for the audio - Marin Ireland narrates and she's hit or miss for me and the way she chose to narrated a couple characters started to bug me by the halfway point and I switched more to reading on my kindle
I really look forward to these weekly posts - they bring me book joy. This week has been another stressful weather week. I’m currently in a RV as my husband and I travel full time. We had to leave western NC 2 + weeks ago and have been in VA. We will be going back next week. We have a house under construction and found out we are free of damage. Can’t wait to get and see for ourselves. And then Milton. All my family is in SW FL and I’ve about had no focus for almost a week. Everyone is fine. Please no more this year!
So this last week I listened to KINGDOM OF THE BLIND by Louise Penny. I save her books for times like this. The familiar characters help. And I read THE SECRET, BOOK AND SCONE SOCIETY because there’s nothing like a cozy mystery. I should be ready to get back to my “October fall” read THE BROKEN GIRLS.
I have a couple of book reading friends that will occasionally read a book together, but I wish I had more of that. And I thoroughly enjoy a couple of podcasts, but I’m not much of a watcher. I do enjoy Murders in the Building though. My husband just asked me if I’m writing a novel. I guess I had a lot to say this week! Thanks Renee. I appreciate the work you do and have enjoyed following you after your podcast work.