Wow, I haven’t done a book review post in almost a year. One day I’ll be as consistent about these as I was six or seven years ago, when I was actually reading more.
The truth is, I’m having a hard time concentrating on fiction, especially because I’m horrendous at listening to fiction audiobooks. Part of that is due to the way technology and the world of constant notifications is wiring our brains. It has become impossible for my brain to concentrate on a series and remember everything that happened in the previous books, and I suspect the only way to fix this is a complete brain rewiring.
Another piece of the puzzle is the number of commitments I’m juggling now. Yes, I’m working only one job now, and I work remotely. But I’m also active in the Pokemon Go battling community and trying to revise a book and running Wikiwrimo and, shockingly, having a social life. Try to tell 2017 me this while she’s struggling to pay all her bills.
With all that and all the regular responsibilities that come with being an adult, sitting down to read a book feels like a lot, especially as my social calendar fills up. And if the book doesn’t grab my attention on page one, or if I’m waiting to hear from someone, or if my brain is all over the place like it often is now, my brain concentrates on everything else except the book in my hand, which makes reading feel like a chore.
I’ve been reaching my book goals over the past couple of years thanks to my book club, a couple of marathon sessions and the power of audiobooks. The problem with audiobooks is that I find myself incapable of listening to fiction that I haven’t read yet. If I could listen to fiction, I’d be set, and my to-read list would be a little shorter. But I haven’t been able to harness this power, so I find myself listening to nonfiction books on a wide variety of topics, and those are… a mixed bag, let’s say.
To give you an idea, when I started writing this post, I had read six books this year. It’s April. Three of those are fiction, and two of those were for my book club. (I missed January’s session because it was the weekend following my sterilization.) The other three were audiobooks, and I still haven’t chosen another audiobook to read because I’ve been traveling to Pokemon regionals and haven’t been out and about alone too much.
I checked out several graphic novels in the hopes that lighter reading with more pictures would help me get back in the groove. I talked about momentum in my post about Pokemon regionals, and while this is unrelated, getting that momentum back is what I need to get back into reading, or writing, or anything else.
So let’s get started. I’m not going to review everything I read in the past year, just the highlights.