PSA on my "Currently Reading" books

I know I know, I have been reading Unbroken and I just cannot get into it just yet. I find it to be well written and a wonderful story but I needed to put it down. Well, I did put it down, I left it to collect dust, felt so guilty that I had stop reading everything to mourn the loss...(the guilt is painful) . Some members in my book group are very honest with this as they are like me, start a book, put a book mark in at page ten  and whisper to the book, "I will be back soon, I promise." 

Sometimes you go back, sometimes you don't . But it's comforting to know that it's there.

For later.

Working a book group is one of the most rewarding, most fun and most wonderful things I have done. It takes a lot of work as everyone reads different genres and I feel it's important to keep up with all so I do a lot of book blog reading. I have became an ace on reading reviews and book news along with all the other book things one can come up with, even on Pinterest. I have so many book boards it's ridiculous. And they are mostly at the top of my Pin page so go take a peek (under Cheryl Poole-Musgrove.) Lots of good ideas, photos and memes.

So I want to shout out a  PSA. I am an insane reader now. I start a book and let go, I can't stress or feel guilty though I do, but I move on to the next one (after sorting out what I am going to read next which can take a whole evening.) I have decided I have gone from a very particular one book at a time reader to a very insane reader, I have to read a book that fits with what is going on or not going on in my life. 

So you will see me changing books around in my "Currently Reading" boxes, if I get through t hem I will be reviewing them (see Review box.) I am learning to accept my fate.

Thanks!

PS I am reading The Miniaturist by  Jessie Burton, so far so good, a bit on the The Girl with the Pearl Earring side but that was one of my favorite books so I am comfortably back in tune with a good book.

Developmental stages of reading

When you were little you could lie on your stomach for hours and read a book. You could scramble to bed, lie flat and hold a book up over your head, for hours. Your arms never tired.

Teens can curl up into fetal position or hang upside down to read. It's insane.

Once you hit adulthood you can read side lying, head propped up by arm and the book out in front of you. Hours. 

Once you hit middle age, you realize that sitting up is the way to go or you will be in a coma by page two. After all, it's the busiest time of one's life. Being tired is an expectation and a right.

Later on in life, some stand at the kitchen counter, so says my mom. She said that it is too much to sit down, she is out like a light. Bed forget it, a chair, forget it, she must stand. She has been doing this for years.

I can't imagine what old age is going to bring! I am thinking audio while being strapped to a chair with a neck harness. Clips to keep your eyes open. Caffeine IV grip.

I have tired many positions, we all have. I can't lie on my side and glare down at a book that is not directly in front of me, my eyes are all over and the lack of precision and geometry distracts me. The bed? NO way. The last bit of utter comfort without falling asleep is in this (above) chair. Straight back, pillows geared for my neck to be in the proper position and a pillow on my lap to hold a book, iPad or Kindle. I can read in cars too, however,  since we don't really go anywhere much these days and doctors are running tighter schedules, AND the TVs blaring in every sort of office now, Kathi Lee, screeching, (no offense to KL fans but really...) it's not even worth taking a book out, though I always will, mind you, always will. You never know.

I do have one doctor that refuses to have a TV in his office, I will never leave him. Never.

Reading has so many variables as you age, font size, heaviness of the book (my grandmother said if it's over two hundred pages, she's not reading it, that was in her eighties.) and character count (my grandmother said if the book has over five characters she can't keep up with them.) God rest her soul, I really didn't believe her. I thought, how can this be?? But as I get older I see the slippery slope one goes down as we find a way to stay in our hobby, a much beloved hobby, downsizing the things that make it too hard. 

For now I will sit in my chair, my books can still be heavy, font size, meh, I have retinopathy so I do tend to find bigger and glossier font and if it's lame font,  hard to see, I buy it on Kindle or eReader. I am getting out of larger population of characters books of late, it seems to be a bit much and I really have a hard time committing to any series (except for one, one I have invested in.) But a series talk will be for another blog on another day. 

I am going now, I need a good propping up to dive back into my book and hope I can maintain this way of book life for another decade or two. The forties and fifties, maybe sixties, a good reading chair is a must. With many pillows to make you feel like you are being put in the perfect position to read.  Good luck!

The Winter of Our Disconnect by Susan Maushart

If there is one way to predict how bad Internet addiction is, just start by hanging out with a bunch of readers. We all bemoan our fate of too much "Facebook" etc. All the time.

And wouldn't you know.. 

FaceBOOK is like a book. With real characters that just happen to be the protagonists and antagonists in your own story. How could you go wrong?? Multiple settings, story arcs, my God it's a library right on your techno device. What's not to like?

We discussed the barriers to our reading and it always turns to this problem. The Net. And since then I have seen a few of my book friends turn to new goals, and they have been very good at keeping them. One makes sure she reads so many pages per night, one makes sure her entire Web sources are locked down and some just left and haven't returned. That's not true, they left and came back with three read books under their belt. 

I was insanely jealous. 

Focusing on time to read is hard for me, every day I wake up and say, I am going to read, end of story. What do I do? Check out the online world, news, favorite book blogs, regular blogs, Twitter, etc and then I log off and curl up with a book. Then I nod off immediately. My brain has had enough reading, time to tune out, and I do. Book falls to floor and I take a great nap. Unfortunately, I wake up to say out loud, "how the hell can I have a book blog to write for and not read??"

The book I posted, The Winter of our Disconnect, is a book I picked up a while back. Wait, no, I bought it so quickly when I found it in the book store I nearly killed myself trying to get home to read the whole thing in one sitting. It was one of those books that pushed me to clean out the superfluous crap of my online life. I set about to go online briefly and get off in one hour so I could read. It worked for awhile but it was too difficult for me to maintain. I wanted to be Susan Maushart. I really did. However, I think about this book every. single. day, does that count? No.

I want to be free from the hassles of logging on, if Susan Maushart can do this, so can I. Well. I can certainly try.

What the book is about:

An American, Susan Maushart, and her children live on the west coast of Australia.  I believe she is freshly divorced from her Aussie husband (that part is fuzzy) and going at it as a single mom. Situations pushed her into making a decision. No online life. For ONE year. One year. Can you imagine her kids and what they had to say? She pushed it to the nth degree, and the outcome was not only entertaining, well thought out and encouraging, but honest, an honest push to look at your own addictions. Even if one cannot commit the way she did, we can certainly have days where we think of her extraordinary efforts and cheer our own selves on to take a day off for a book, a game, a walk, time with family, friends, that place that's called, Real Life. That thing that seems to be boring compared to our online lives. 

I apologize for the crude review, but I think it speaks volumes. Get offline and live. Read. Find time to enjoy your life. Everyone will be online when you get back. I promise (I swear Internet people never leave, they simply cannot which, in turn, makes them the best of people who wait for you when you go on sabbaticals, my people are phenomenal with this, very forgiving..) Set goals, read eleven pages a night, throw your phones and tablets in another room and sit down with a nice cup of tea and read. 

The feeling I experience when I go off the Grid: overwhelmingly wonderful. It's work to make time for a book, it didn't used to be, but it is. That is how our lives are now, hard and very distracted while living most of the time on the Grid. So we must work around it. Not rage against it as most of us want to do, but to put all things in perspective and actually take time off. 

See how you do, I am going to do it myself, I need to catch up on many books that are silently, patiently waiting for me. And I can't wait to meet up with them.

Buy it and keep it by your side, and then go out and buy all your Interwebz friends the book and tell them to never ever lose it. 

Reading: when it takes a back seat

January is one of the best times to read and I haven't been able to get past the first chapter of Unbroken. Not that I think it's a terribly boring book, it's quite the opposite, I just can't seem to get through some very important life distractions that seem to be taking up a lot of life-space. When I get like this I usually reach for short stories or magazines. It helps to "brief" so I feel that I am, at the very least, engaged in the one of the areas of my life that is a happy place.

Unbroken is wonderful, I know this, the first chapter is a good indicator. I am anticipating getting back to it as I do want to see the movie. Last night I finally caved to the film, Silver Linings Playbook as I know I won't read the book any time soon. (Fabulous movie, by the way.)  It's quite a struggle, book vs. film. And this is because I have so many TBR piles that naturally, the cave in to a film is easier than fitting in "one more book."  Especially now. But I am going to stand firm with Unbroken.

The new year starts a bit distracted, off kilter and strange, rest assured, book nerds like me always finds a way back to the disciplined book life. I know I will. For now I will continue to tip toe through Unbroken and my short stories (I read all my magazines yesterday. I can tell you what lipstick is in for Spring.)  

* The photo up top? Only one of many piles of TBR books in my bedroom I purposely tipped it over for the snap. I have to get them all in order someday. I think it's time to take all the books I have read off my shelves and replace them with all the TBRs. That way I know what I have.