Tried With Fire

I joined Goodreads  towards the end of last year. I hadn't joined before because I didn't want to get pulled into another social media black hole, but I think this will be different. I am able to track my progress on books I'm currently reading or listening to. (Tracking audio books is a bit of a challenge, though, since you enter a page number. I usually take a guess based on the chapter number.) Rather than feeling pressured to finish, my lack of progress may be an indication that I've lost interest or that this is a book that is just going to take a lot of time. Goodreads also keeps a running list of books I want to read. This keeps me from forgetting the books that have been waiting on the shelves, which are more than I want to count. You can get recommendations based on your reading tastes too. I just added a few titles, some of which are at my public library. Some of the recommendations can be puzzling. I use the phrase "grimly fascinating" for the ...

Then end of 2019 is fast approaching, and people are posting their lists of favorite books and future books. I will post a list of my Top 10 for 2019, but there are still two more days to read in 2019, so I want to keep my options open. It's also hard to pare down the list, so I am putting it off for today. In the past, I had compiled a list of what I wanted to read in the New Year. I don't think I will do that for 2020. I have so many books waiting in the wings on a bookshelf near my bed, literally staring me in the face when I wake up and before I go to sleep. I think that visual will be a better reminder than a list that I post and then forget about. I also want to read because I care , not because it's the latest or most popular book as its only recommendation. I've slowly been moving toward reading for pleasure, reading that is not solely for the brain alone, and taking Alan Jacobs' advice: It seems to me that it is not so hard to absorb, and...