books i'm reading this weekend in between grad work (not a literature student) and carer responsibility

I have not gained ground under my feet. This idea that "one day" I am going to have a zillion hours to relax and just read by candlelight.

Instead of waiting for the ideal life circumstances in which to read, I have made a few changes to how I have been approaching my reading.

november 2024

Changes I've made in my reading life this semester:

1. Lessening time I am spending watching BookTube. Rather than feeling like I'm inspired to read more, I just feel totally overwhelmed.
2. Not tracking my reading on Goodreads or online
3. Not worrying about finishing what I am reading on any kind of timetable
4. Mixing audio (rare and mainly re-reads), with physical books, and ebooks both on my tablets (ipad and kindle fire), and my paperwhite

amazing reads

The consequences of these changes

As a consequence of changing this, my focus is just on, "What am I reading?"... not, "What have I finished?" It's such a lovely thought, that I just don't even worry about how long it's taking me to get through certain books or re-reads, I am just enjoying it.

Right now I have a book on kindle for late at night to totally decompress. It's a women's fiction type of free novel on Prime; a few classics, some literary fiction, etc.  I will post about all of them this weekend. 

I deleted Goodreads after like 11 years because I seem to struggle with overwhelm when it comes to social media-esque things and I had so many friends on there all commenting on each book I read, and I couldn't manage it well. I transitioned over to Storygraph which was great, but my kindle didn't integrate with it, so it so it felt like yet another thing to do. 

I want to start a physical book journal like I used to keep, but honestly unless it can seamlessly flow with what I am already doing, I won't bother with it. I have to keep everything simple right now, or the overwhelm will choke me. 

Upcoming weekend reading theme

I am going to focus on prioritizing school work (a bit behind), and doing what I'm doing which is reading in bits when I have time in between all of this immense reading and writing.