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Reading Goals for 2011
It’s that time of year again! Time to think about my reading goals for the year. Since reading is pretty much my favorite hobby, I don’t like to limit it too much, but I do like to encourage myself to broaden my horizons and be practical. To that end, let’s first take a glance at my goals from January 2010.
Successful:
- Read one book of poetry. I read Beowulf. Not quite modern poetry, but still counts as poetry. 🙂
- Read at least 3 graphic novels/manga. I wound up reading 8 and discovered a new format I love!
Unsuccessful:
- Read the books left over from undergraduate classes. Yes. Um. I only successfully read two of them. There’s still more left than I care to admit…..
- Read more nonfiction. There were only 7 out of 63, and all but one of those were memoirs.
- Control books owned by using Swaptree. Hah! I actually switched to PaperBackSwap, and my TBR pile has become…..daunting.
Goals for 2011:
- Frugality! This may be my favorite hobby, but I can be frugal about it. My TBR pile currently has 69 books on it, and that’s just the physical books. Let’s not even get into the eBooks awaiting me. So. My rule is to really think about my acquisitions before I acquire them and hopefully get the TBR pile back down so it fits on one shelf of my bookshelf.
- Read 100 books. Ok. I got to 70 this year. I think since I’m out of grad school now I should be able to do 100, yes?
- Travel the 7 continents. Since I can’t afford a real vacation, I want to take a virtual one around the world. For the inhabited continents, I want to read something set on that continent written by an inhabitant of the continent. So, no travelogues by old British dudes. Antarctica may be challenging…..but, hey, there are scientific expeditions there, yes? also, for North America, the US is not allowed. It has to be Canada or Mexico.
So, that’s it, but I think they’ll be challenging enough for me! Of course, I’ll also be reading books that count for the Mental Illness Advocacy challenge I’m hosting. 🙂
Any special plans for 2011 reading? Advice on keeping the TBR pile more controllable?
The Evolution of My Wishlist
Before LibraryThing, book blogs, and PaperBackSwap entered my life, I didn’t really have a book wishlist. Oh if I had gotten into a series I’d keep my eye open for the release of the next one or if a friend recommended a book to me I’d put it on hold in the library, but that was about it. Back then I’d generally go browse the library or a bookstore and just grab whatever looked interesting and that was that. My reading was much more hit or miss back then. I’d periodically find a book I really enjoyed, but most of the time it was average or “yuck, this sucks, but I don’t have anything else to read right now, so there you go.” This meant that, believe it or not, I’d been an avid reader for years, but didn’t really have a firm grasp on what type of books I enjoy. I’d read anything I could get my hands on just for the sake of reading, because that’s how it was when I was a kid. We were poor, and so I had to make do with whatever books I could get my hands on. This mentality had firmly carried itself over into my adulthood.
Then I started recording what I read on LibraryThing, blogging my own reviews, and discovered book blogs. I created a wishlist in LibraryThing and started adding pretty much any book that sounded even mildly entertaining to it. I then added them to my PaperBackSwap wishlist until I hit the limit (which is in the hundreds). I couldn’t believe how many books I wanted to read! I then had the phenomenon of a tbr pile of books I own, not books I’d checked out from the library. I was sitting looking at them this week, and it struck me. There are as many books in my tbr pile as I’ve read so far this year, and I could think of at least a few on my wishlist that I wanted to read more than a few of the ones in my tbr pile. Then something someone pointed out to me a couple of months ago rang through my brain. They pointed out that reading is my hobby, and I shouldn’t feel bad for spending money or time on something I enjoy so much. Well, why have I been spending time and money on books that I don’t want to read as much as other ones? Why have I felt obligated to? Because I might like it? Reading is my hobby; it’s not my job. It’s not homework. Why have I felt this obligation to branch out into types of books I don’t tend to like just because others have liked them? I’m not saying I shouldn’t ever branch out. That’d get dull. But if you saw my tbr pile and my wishlist, you’d realize that I was branching out about 50% of the time. That’s a bit too much in my opinion. 20 to 25% is more like it.
I can’t do anything about the books I already have. I acquired them, so I’m going to read them, but I could do something about my wishlist. So I went into my PaperBackSwap wishlist and ruthlessly went through, eliminating books that I’d tossed on there without much thought. What’s left is books I genuinely want to read, and yes, a couple of them are branching out of my norm. They stayed because they sounded genuinely intriguing, not because they sounded mildly interesting. I can only read so many books a year. Why spend time on 0nes that don’t grip me? That don’t affect my perception of the world? Life’s too short. I should enjoy every second of it I get to spend reading for fun.
My Tentative Journey With eBooks
A while back, I told you guys that I’m continuing my tentative steps into eBooks, but it hadn’t been very successful yet. I admit this is partly because I’m a broke-ass graduate student, and so I don’t exactly have the cash to shell out for what I see as an extravagance. Why get an eReader when I can get used books for under $5 a pop? (For why I don’t have time to use the local library, see this post). I’ve tried downloading eBooks that are available as pdf’s onto my computer, but I always made it only about as far through as a blog’s archives before losing focus. Or I’d have to leave it and come back the next day and be incapable of finding where I left off. I just can’t read a book on a computer. Nuh-uh. A computer is for article-length pieces. I just can’t get past the part where I’m looking at a computer to get lost in the story.
When I got my iTouch, I decided to venture in yet again. But I repeat that I’m a cheapskate, so I downloaded a couple of the various apps available for 99 cents that provide huge selections of out of copyright classics to read. Although I was able to focus on the screen, it reminded me a lot of my speed-reading classes in middle school, because the screen automatically fades at a certain point (I’m not sure how long), so I’d either have to keep tapping the screen to keep it from doing that or read insanely fast. The speed might not have been an issue if I wasn’t attempting to read classics, but I always read classics kind of slowly. I get wrapped up in the language and the world-building. Classics are about slow reading versus the fast reading of genre fiction for me. I got about 3 chapters into two different classics before giving up and stopping.
Well then people started talking about the iBook app, and since I love everything Mac, I decided to download it, but upon trying I found out that my iTouch is too old to support it, at which point I started browsing the eReader section of the app store and saw the Kindle app. For some reason, it had previously escaped my attention that the Kindle even had an app for Mac products. I vaguely remembered some book blogs mentioning that you can get some books for free in the Kindle store, and the app was free, and….do I really need to repeat what a cheapskate I am? Lol.
So I figured where am I most likely to read on my iTouch? That’s easy. On the bus when I can’t sit, need to hold on with one hand, and getting a book out of my bag is difficult. What would I like to read on the bus but am embarrassed to? Romance novels. So I found a free romance novel and downloaded it. The nice thing about the Kindle app, the main thing that made me start to relax into reading with it, is that the backlighting never fades. I’m not so caught up in beating the fading light that I’m incapable of getting lost in the story. So that was going fairly well, although I was still choosing to read my print book over the eBook whenever it was possible.
Then a certain book was released. A book in a trilogy that is honestly a guilty pleasure for me. (I’ll leave the reasonings for that for when I review the book next week). I had decided I wasn’t going to buy the book; I’d just read spoilers and be happy with that. But then the day of the release, I was getting frustrated at the complete lack of spoilers on the internet and while watching tv browsed to the Amazon store on my iTouch, and before I knew it, I’d bought the book. I didn’t feel bad about the price, because it was less than the price of a movie ticket, and I view guilty pleasure reads a lot like going to the movies. It’s brief entertainment, and I don’t need to hold onto it. Let it entertain me for a bit, and in most cases, I won’t ever come back to it (my dvd collection is very, very small).
I was still skeptical about my desire to read on the small electronic screen of my iTouch, but I figured worst case scenario I’d skim for the spoilers and read it in print when the hoopla settles down. I started reading it when standing on the bus in the morning, got a seat, and found myself wanting to keep reading on my iTouch over my print book. And then on lunch break I decided I’d rather see what happened in that story than in the one I’m reading in print and discovered how much easier it is to eat and read when you can just set the book down and the pages don’t close on you. Whoa. Then I found myself sitting on my couch reading the iTouch. Then last night in bed I suddenly realized I could turn out all the lights and still see to read because my book was lighting itself up. Whoa.
You guys….I have to admit….I like it. Now that’s not to say I don’t have my issues with it. For instance, nice as it is to read in the dark, sunny locations fade the screen so much that it’s sometimes nearly impossible to read. I also don’t like the thought of the battery maybe running out. (I may have obsessively recharged my iTouch yesterday. *looks askance*) I also don’t like how very small the iTouch screen is. I also would never ever want an electronic device just for reading. Part of the convenience on transit is having my music, videogames, and book all in one item. Having something like a Kindle or a Nook seems rather pointless to me. It’s one more device to carry. So what has a larger screen but does all that? The iPad. I think the iPad still has issues. Like I personally think it’s too big and too thick, (that’s what she said) but I think the next generation is going to solve those problems. So…yeah, I see myself doing some electronic reading in the future. But never on a device meant just for reading. I also only see the value in it for guilty pleasure reads. It works for me because of the way I read guilty pleasures. I read quickly, sometimes skimming, because the story is all about the excitement or the hilarity. It’s not about the deep thought. I can’t see me reading a book that changes my life on an electronic device. That just rings false to me. But reading a story that’s about consuming it once kind of like buying movie popcorn for the pure pleasure of chowing down the greasy, salty deliciousness? That makes sense to me. So that’s the role I see eBooks taking in my life. The reading equivalent of movie popcorn, and who doesn’t like movie popcorn every once in a while?
National Library Week 2010!
Today is the start of National Library Week here in the US–a week to honor and recognize libraries for all of the awesomeness that they entail. I thought I’d honor the week with a post about the important role libraries have played in my life. I hope you all will chime in and do the same!
My parents didn’t have much money when I was little, and on top of that, my mother homeschooled my brother and I. The bi-weekly trip to our local public library was completely an adventure. I couldn’t believe that all these stacks and stacks of books were available for me to read! Since we lived on a secluded road in backwoods Vermont, I didn’t get to see many other kids my age on a regular basis. My brother was 5 years older than me, and all the other kids on the road were boys a bit older than me at least, so books became my friends. When I was done with schoolwork, I’d run off to read. When books were done, the scenes and characters became the back-drop for my play. The only reason I was able to pursue reading so enthusiastically was because of the library.
When I reached high school, I was allowed to go to public school. The library became a safe place for me to go and explore all these new ideas and worlds I was being exposed to. Books that I took out from there and read led to me changing some very fundamental ideas I had held up until then. I would not be the person I am today without that experience. It was more than having access to the books. It was knowing that I could take them out and read them without judgment from the librarians or fear that they would run and tell somebody what I was reading.
In university the library became my work study place of employment. The library yet again was providing me access to books, both in the free form and in the money for textbooks form. I couldn’t get over the whole working environment. The librarians were, by and large, really cool! They were hip and sympathetic to my sometimes overwhelming life as a first generation college student. I was introduced to WorldCat and was amazed at my ability to hit the “Get It Now!” button and get nearly any item from other libraries in the US. (I’m sure the inter-library loan department wasn’t quite of fond of my love of the Get It Now button as I was, haha). The library was my go-to place to hang out with my friends, for quiet study, to work on a computer between classes (I didn’t have a laptop for most of college). Almost all of my friends from university are sorted under a Goldfarb Library tab on Facebook. It was yet again a safe place for me to live life and figure out what I think and who I am. Needless to say, it’s also where I figured out that I wanted to be a librarian, and is it any wonder when I see what impact librarians have had on my life?
When I look back over my life, it’s easy to see that I wouldn’t be the person I am today at all without libraries. I wouldn’t have been encouraged to explore, to make mistakes, to read new and sometimes crazy ideas (to make noise and surreptitiously have a slice of pizza with friends). I can’t imagine anything else that could fill that place in my life. For that reason, I am passionate about libraries in the 21st century. They are relevant, because what else can provide all of that to a growing, changing, exploring person? Libraries are a large part of what made me free to be me.
5 More Questions About Books
You guys may remember the previous meme post I did 5 Questions About Books, which I acquired from Syosset Public Library’s Readers and Reference blog. Well, the lovely Sonia of the library, contacted me with the complete list of questions they use in case I wanted to do another meme! So here’s 5 More Questions About Books, and as before, feel free to use the meme yourself.
What book is on your nightstand right now?:
The Angry Heart: Overcoming Borderline and Addictive Disorders: An Interactive Self-Help Guide by Joseph Santoro, PhD. It’s a great book, and I highly recommend it!
What is a book you’ve faked reading?:
Bleak House by Charles Dickens. It was assigned for a required course in British literature. I attempted to read it, but after a couple of chapters and with the other homework I had going on that semester, Sparknotes became my very dear friend. For the record, I aced the exam questions on it. 😉
What’s a book that’s changed your life?:
The Handmaid’s Tale by Margaret Atwood. I was raised in a very traditional, religious, patriarchal manner, and this book was what spurred me on to investigate other ways of looking at the world. Needless to say, I am no longer religious; I am a feminist. This book is what started me on the path to free-thought, and I will always love Margaret Atwood for that.
Can you quote a favorite line from a book?:
“…If death
Consort with thee, death is to me as life;
So forcible within my heart I feel
The bond of nature draw me to my own;
My own in thee, for what thou art is mine:
Our state cannot be severed, we are one,
One flesh; to lose thee were to lose myself.”
Adam to Eve, Paradise Lost by John Milton. One of my favorite quotes of all time.
What’s your favorite book genre?:
This should come as absolutely no surprise to anyone, but dystopian literature followed closely by scifi with horror a super-duper close third.
On Writing in Books
Growing up, I was taught that books are precious objects that we do not make any marks in. Of course, most of our books were borrowed from the library, so this made perfect sense.
Then university came, along with my two very text-heavy majors–American History and English and American Literature. I was encouraged to mark up my books, both the primary texts of my history courses and the literature of my English courses. At first I was hesitant, using post-it notes stuck to the pages to mark my ideas. After the course was over, I’d remove the post-it notes, leaving just a few highlighted passages.
Along came the year when I took two courses in a row that taught Paradise Lost. The first course was about heresy in history and literature (freaking amazing class, dudes). The second was on the Western Canon. I opened my copy of Paradise Lost in Western Canon and found myself devastated that all of my heresy observations were gone. Gone and never to return. To this day I wish I had the notations I made during the exquisite heresy lectures. Nothing taught me the vast possibilities in good literature like approaching Paradise Lost in these two different manners did. And nothing showed me better the value of writing in a book.
My experience reading isn’t just for shits and giggles, as the saying goes. I learn things about myself, about the world. My perceptions and ideas flux and change. There are the books that I read as a teen that I’ve re-read in my 20s, and I’ve wished that I could see on the page my reaction to the writing as a teenager.
The experience of reading a word or a phrase and having it strike you. Of wanting to underline it. Of wanting to note what it means to you right then. Expand this to include notations of things you’ve learned in relation to this word or phrase, such as the fact that you googled it and discovered it was dangerous for the author to write such a thing at the time. Or even just the definition of a word you didn’t know.
I know many people think it sullies a book to write in it, but I think it expands the book. I know people who are disgusted if they check out a book from the library and it’s written in, but I find that to be a wonderful treasure. I love seeing how someone else reacted to the same book. Someone who I will never know beyond the fact that they were so moved by a passage that they felt the need to write “omg!!” alongside it or that they knew so much about Greek mythology that they noted which goddess a passage is referring to.
Reading should be interactive, and books are necessarily a part of that. When I die and people clean out my personal library, I want the copies of my books to show the wear and tear that comes from truly interacting with the books you love. I want them to be worn from multiple readings and covered with notations and highlighting made in different colors throughout the course of my life. I want my books to reflect the impact that they’ve had on me, so I’ll continue to write in them. Even if it means that when I decide in my minimalist way to let a book go that I have a more difficult time finding someone to swap with.
5 Questions About Books
I stumbled on this fun meme over at Readers and Reference, and I really liked the questions it asks, so I bookmarked it for future use. I tweaked it a little bit to be in question format and to be a bit clearer. If you decide to do the meme yourself, please post a link in the comments here so we can all check it out and get to know you better too!
What’s a book you most want to read again for the first time?:
Hmmm, there’s a lot of books that have meant so much to me in my life, but I think I’d have to say The Hitchhiker’s Guide to the Galaxy by Douglas Adams. I had seen the movie and absolutely hated it. My nerdier friends at university told me over and over again to read the “trilogy,” and I would love it. I refused to for years, but then one day I decided to take a whack at it. I can’t remember why. Anyway, I was cracking up reading it, which hadn’t happened to me in years at the time. It really reminded me why I love to read.
What was one of your favorite childhood books?:
Absolutely no doubt On the Banks of Plum Creek by Laura Ingalls Wilder. I loved the whole series growing up, but this was my favorite entry. In it Laura lives next to a creek, and I lived next to three beaver ponds, so I felt a bit of camaraderie. I also was completely obsessed with the sod house for some reason. I wanted to live underground just like Laura in a house that plants grew out of and, best of all, that I could walk on. I also enjoyed their problems with cows, since I was frequently sent out to chase cows back into their pastures. Plus, Laura’s relationship with her father, Pa, I identified with as it reminded me of mine with my father. Also, not gonna lie, I wished repeatedly that I had a mother like Ma.
What’s a book that you were assigned in school that you were expecting to be bad, but that turned out to be really good?:
I was a US History major in undergrad (my other major was English and American Literature). We were required to take two courses that gave you an overview of all of US history. I was dreading the Civil War portion, because I just don’t like that war. Every historian has a time period within their specialty they don’t like. Anywho, so this professor assigned us Uncle Tom’s Cabin by Harriet Beecher Stowe to read, as it was one of the big stimuli for the Civil War. She wanted us to see beyond the modern controversy and read it with historian’s eyes to see why it had such a big impact on the abolition movement. I was expecting it to be fingernails-on-chalkboard bad, but, you guys, it is so good. It really demonstrates how abolitionists saw African-Americans as equally human, just downtrodden as the victims of slavery. It also shows the high expectations placed on Christian women at the time. It’s a heart-wrenching book, and I encourage you to read it and judge it for what it is and not for the racist movies and plays that followed it.
What’s your “guilty pleasure” read?:
This is a tough question for me, because I don’t tend to feel guilty about anything that I read. I’d have to say though that British chicklit books like Confessions of a Shopaholic by Sophie Kinsella probably count. The cheesey, romcom storylines annoy the heck out of me, but for some reason, I still read them periodically. I guess it’s kind of like watching Teen Mom on MTV. I can’t look away from the train wreck.
What’s a book you feel you should read, but haven’t yet?:
I’m not sure it quite counts as a book, but Beowulf. I took this AMAZING class in undergrad on ancient mythology, and we mentioned it umpteen times, but didn’t have time to read it. I absolutely love ancient myths, like The Odyssey is one of my favorite books of all time, so really there’s not much of an excuse for the fact that I have yet to read Beowulf. Hm, except maybe that I’m not sure which translation is the best, and we all know how much translation matters in the ancient myths.
*waves* Hope you enjoyed the meme!
Reading Goals for 2010
I don’t want to over-plan my reading for 2010, but I do want to give it a loose structure and maybe broaden my horizons a bit. I also want to be practical about my reading, for instance the fact that I rarely have time to go to the library (erm, the public one, not the one I work at 5 days a week). Anywho, with that in mind, my loosely-defined goals for 2010 are:
- Read the books I bought for undergrad classes but didn’t have time to read then. Seeing as how my two majors are topics I actually like (History and English and American Literature), I actually do want to read these old “assignments.” Expect to see a bit of ancient literature, Chekhov, and noir.
- Read a bit more nonfiction in areas I want to be more educated in, preferably science. Seeing as how I work in a medical library, this should be pretty easy to pull off cheaply.
- Utilize Swaptree to get rid of books I weeded from my collection at the end of the year and in turn get books I want to read. Since I’m doing an exact 1:1 exchange, this should keep my book collection on the smaller side.
- Courtesy of a challenge from @shaindelr over on Twitter who gasped about my not having read any poetry in 2009–read one book of poetry. However, I’m not making any promises that it won’t be of the ancient variety. 😉
- Finally, watching Japanese movies got me pretty into the stories their culture has to offer. That along with seeing some graphic novels in friends’ houses made me want to give the genre an official shot, so I’ll be reading at least 3 graphic novels/manga in 2010. I’m super-excited to read my first Battle Royale, which I wanted to read after seeing and loving the movie.
The Electronic vs. Print Books Debate
The eBook debate has been fairly consistently humming in my virtual world –twitter, GoogleReader, listserves, etc… Frankly I’m starting to wonder at the vitriol being spewed by both sides of the debate.
We have the print people who are absolutely certain that the electronic people are out to kill any and all print books leading to some sort of Big Brother society where The Man can delete our censor our books whenever he sees fit.
Then we have the electronic people who firmly believe print books are horrible for the environment and anyone who wants to still read them is a backwards, ancient person trying to hold society back.
Um, people, what planet are you living on?
I really believe the eBook vs. print book situation, if allowed to naturally play out, will lead to a world where print and electronic books coexist gracefully. A world where some people will still prefer print books in most cases but electronic books in others, and other people will prefer electronic books in some cases but print books in others. Consumers as a group are actually far more flexible than anyone is giving them credit for. Sure, there’ll be the die-hard hold-outs who will refuse to read anything not in print, and there will be the obsessive electronic fans who will refuse to read anything not on a screen, but in between these two extremes are everybody else. From what I have seen, people choose which option is best for the situation. Most people I know have a few books in each format, depending on what they need them for. Consumers aren’t busy spewing vitriol at each other. They’re busy saying “Well, I want this genre book on my iTouch for my commute, and this nonfiction book in print so I can write my thoughts in it as I go reading it in the evening.”
The reason for all the angry commentary is plain and simple: fear. People are afraid of change. Booksellers are afraid their stores will become obsolete or at least not profitable anymore if people are downloading their books. Electronic vendors are afraid the print folks will shout them down before they ever even get a chance. Then there’s the snobs who think their way is always the best way and are afraid of anything else.
Well, you know what? I doubt either scenario will happen. I see a future where booksellers have print books and stations where people can download new electronic books to their reader, and possibly even charge their reader for a small fee. I see a future where people still have a bookshelf of beloved print books, but also a charging station for their eReader. I see a future (hell, I’m already living this) where morning commutes feature people reading on eReaders and reading print books they own and reading library books and listening to audiobooks.
So, really, people, calm down and just let the change happen. It’s not going to kill anyone or anything.
The Masterpieces App
I recently acquired an iPod Touch, which led to me downloading some apps. This means that the Oregon Trail app is competing with my current read for attention on my commute. One day though while browsing the app store, I found one called “Masterpieces.” It was around 20 books for 99cents.
I have no idea why I bought this. I have a distinct aversion to eBooks. I don’t care if that makes me an old fogey at the ripe age of 23; I much prefer holding the paper book firmly in my hand. Not to mention that I hate staring at screens for fun when I stare at them at work all day.
Today though my bus was abnormally full, which led me to standing and holding the pole with one hand leaving one hand free. Usually that’s enough to hold a book, but my current one has a broken binding and pages that have to be held in. I also couldn’t play the Oregon Trail with only one hand. All of a sudden, I found myself opening the Masterpieces app. Just as I had chosen a classic to start reading, a seat next to me freed up. Relieved, I sat down and pulled out my paper book.
I realized later though that although I was relieved to be able to read my paper book, I also was relieved when I was standing up that I had an option besides music to get me through the commute.
Maybe there’s a place in my life for eBooks after all.
This work by Amanda Nevius is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-Noncommercial-No Derivative Works 3.0 United States License.
Opinions of a Wolf 