Sunday, October 9, 2016

Catch up over a cuppa of joe

I have returned to the blogging work on a very wonky laptop of ours. The PC has had a tantrum of sorts so I have been left with an iPad which is impossible to blog on. Add my new job and a few other things, you get the picture. Books? What books?

Believe it or not I have been reading, not as much as I want to but have cut through a few books this year. Some fabulous some not finished and some sorta-mkay. Like I have said in the past, books are like people, you must have chemistry with them.

I have discovered a few things since I have been gone. I would like to share! I may have shared some off these things before but I swear I have some amnesia going on.

  • Being all about reading different genres I decided that in this time of not being online spouting off about books, to go back to my old favorite authors, read wherever they are in their series and not giving one flying *&#@! if I had missed out on reading earlier books.It helps when life is too fast. 
  • I cannot read before bed. I swear it's like taking a truckload of Lunesta.  One sentence and I could probably have surgery done on me after I fall asleep. It's that sad and bad. 
  • I have convinced myself that I don't have to read every single NEW book out there. So what if I read a book circa 1986 with yellow pages and a ripped cover. In time the new books will be old books, then I can read them.Okay well, not all, I have to have a brand new book for the smell alone. Once in a while. I have looked through my dusty piles and read a few oldies. I felt pleased after blowing all the dust out of it and reading it once again.
  • My friends read much faster than me and it's okay. It wasn't okay but now it's a great way to save on a book after your book friends says, " Skip it, just skip right over it, next to it and save some beans." Okay sure!
  • If you noticed the array of blue covers this year, you weren't alone. Blue EVERYWHERE! Every year I love to see what the book cover trend is. This year it was BLUE.
  • I enjoyed a few books and  I will post them soon, plus I have to update the blog, it looks pretty damn sad. Next time I will use my H's pc. This wonky sticky space bar is driving me insane!
Tally ho and all that, book friends, see you soon.
Cheryl 

Wednesday, April 6, 2016

Will return soon :)



I have fallen out of the Internet Mainstream because of working and a current  hospitalization due to a transplant issue so I'm too fatigued to write however, good news, I finally read Harry Potter.!

And I have so much to write about the book I refused to read.
Stay well, talk soon!

Sunday, January 24, 2016

How to get your reading mojo back.

 


Hello! 

A blizzard means one thing, lots of reading. I managed to catch up on all my favorite book blogs as well as my book pages on Facebook. I started My Name is Lucy Barton by Elizabeth Strout, it's beautifully written, stark but rich in story.  That's where I am, (thank you Mother Nature you have helped me restart my good reading habits once again.) I've been working on it but the snow created a perfect jumpstart. 

Earlier this month, I decided to read for an hour a night no matter how tired I was as working full time learning new things and meeting new people was (still is! exhausting. But keeping a sense of self when I got home is important so I made sure I indulged nightly. There are zillions of articles about how to get your reading mojo back but this is what I am doing to not feel so overwhelmed with seemingly endless TBR piles as my mojo kicked back in. 


  • Since I am a huge advocate of crossing genres I thought it would be a safe bet to stick to my favorite genre so I wouldn't lose my way again. Fiction. Particularly fiction with subjects I can read without burning up too many brain cells. Or complicated but on topics I like or relate to. 
  • Place all my other genres in order with the book I want to read the most at the top of the pile or list for later reading. That way I am organized when I am are ready to take on other genres. 
  • Signed off of Bookperk and similar discounted emailing book sales sites. After a long period of receiving emails those books make the rounds in the sales department, quite often. The less clutter of sale books taking up space, the better. 
  • I formulated a change on my book group (temporarily) by listing what books members have  read and less "Coming Soon" books so we don't feel even more overwhelmed. 
  • Created a new Goodreads account to start afresh. 
  • Left out the only book I am reading. 
  • If you have a monkey mind like me, keep a Post It note in your book and nake tiny comments to remind you where you are when you return the next day, I've found this to be very helpful. 
  • With instant gratification reigning  in this climate it's hard to sit and read for long periods of time. As in all things, when you lose your reading mojo, you can get it back but it takes work. And a few strategies. You may not get a blizzard but all is not lost! Good Luck! -C. 

Friday, January 1, 2016

Happy New Year! 2016


It's hard to believe that it's 2016. I am still trying to figure out what happened in the '90s. All joking aside, 2015 wasn't the best year for books. I say this after reading many end of the year articles that readers were not happy with most of the books they read (or tried to read.) I tend to agree, working out what to post on my book group every month was a bit rough. Some books just seemed blah or overdone. There were a few gems, however, and some of those gems were books I never thought I would like. Little Big Lies  by Liane Moriarty, read blog here: 
received my overall "Best Book of the Year 2015. " Lots of suburbia humor, interesting fun plot, much  laughter and tears and defected by lovable, hate-able characters. I didn't read much this year, unfortunately,  so I don't have a long list of favorites,  we can go back to my original thought, it wasn't the best year for books or for readers. 


 On a fabulous note!  My husband, my daughter and I received some book gifts from family and friends (and each other) for Christmas! Some are not shown as they were Kindle gifts. I am pretty excited. I also looked into this year and there are some GOOD books coming out! I will blog about that later. For now, I am going to finish up a book for a friend (the book hasn't been published yet) for free and it's VERY GOOD. I will be spotlighting "him" in Authors to love soon. Then I will be into an older book from a while back, Peace Like a  River by Leif Enger as promised to a friend who said I need to read it now (she is very pushy like that, said lovingly.) That's my start of 2016.


One of the interesting things about the book blogging world are the peaks and valleys bloggers go through. I noticed many were taking sabbaticals last year, or wanted to read whatever they wanted to read and not books by publishers.  Some just slowed down on their reading as they were not satisfied with 2015 however, they were blogging about how it has been harder to find time to sit down with a book. Some of the bloggers were encouraging and offered up great ideas to get out of the slump, organize and not always read the best seller lists.

I hate resolutions, I tend to forget my list three days into January. I am me, I am not going to change too much but I do want to think about how I approach my reading habits. For one I am going to ditch my Goodreads account and open up a new one. I want to approach it differently so I can keep tabs on what I am reading, and what I want to read by keeping the list very short. The longer the TBR list the bigger the odds I won't read it. Ever. So this year I want to organize a bit. 

Books are hard to get into when you start an intense new job. I am tired at night and tend to fall asleep after three sentences. Reading in bed isn't feasible. So we decided here at our house that we are going to eke out time during the day, any time to sit and read for an hour, together or apart. 

I wish you the best of the year, may great things happen for you, success, love, more books, health and safety of you and your families. Read on my friends!
Thank you so much for following me, please leave a comment!
Cheryl M



 

Starting a new blog.

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