books to end 2024 on a peaceful and introspective note

Messy side table showcasing how busy and pushed for time I am as the year comes to a close. Frosty mornings with hot coffee find me sitting by candlelight and reflecting on all that has happened this year. 

my messy side table today

I still have 5000 words to write before the 24th as an academic draft, but aside from that I am wanting to prepare for some intense medical test, and deep rest. Lots of reading by candlelight with book lights, reading on kindle warm feature activated, and copious amounts of tea.

I've been deeply reflective, intensely focused on how desperate I am for 2025 to be starkly different and more directed than 2024. 

Reading is a safe place for me and increases my wellbeing 100 fold, and I have some pretty cozy plans and intentions for my reading life in 2025.

love this edition

tab city: so many wise gems in this novel

I am loving Mrs. Dalloway and cannot believe it has taken me this long to read it. Absolutely in love with how situated in time and place the novel is. Virginia Woolf is a gorgeous prose stylist, and this novel is already on my "will re-read forever" list. 

Reading this novel slowly and deeply late at night when I have some free time has been so beautiful. I definitely have other books scaffolded around this novel, but in the chance that I finish it before december 31st, I have plans to re-read Jane Eyre.

this will be my first read of this edition

I thought I would make it out of 2024 without re-reading Jane Eyre, but the dark moors are calling me, so I have to answer the call of the Brontës and sink down into this fantastic tale of sadness, quiet despair, strong character, love, and redemption.

Jane Eyre remains one of my top 3 favorite novels of all time, and normally I don't pass a late Autumn or Winter season without reading most or all of this novel.

I'm sending warmth and love your way and hoping that if (like me) life has battered you on the shores of 2024, that you take some time for deep reflection as the winter solstice nears and remember that there is a soft space to land inside of the best works of literature.

Happy reading and be well ☕️ 

returning to a spreadsheet for book organization

I had a wonderful trip to new york, and while I didn't visit any bookstores (no time), I had some of my favorite coffee and took a long, slow stroll through central park thinking about my life.

favorite cortado ever

I sometimes want to just scroll through my book titles and ponder which books to add to my currently reading list. I am all about current reads. NOT what I have just finished,  but what I am currently reading. With that in mind I am always rereading my favorites even if it is a super slow stroll through them again (hello Jane Eyre).

I have cycled through phases of using Goodreads to organize my reading, and I am kind of sick of it. I had a Goodreads account for about 12 years, and hundreds of followers on it, but I deleted it. I started to be bothered by the thing that doesn't seem to bother anyone else, and that is comments on my current reads.

"OMG, you will love the second half of the book!" ; "This ending will surprise you!" 

This wasn't on the fault of anyone. They weren't trying to spoil the book in any way, it's just the nature of seeing someone who loves a book engage with someone who is going to read it. It started to feel a lot like work and I already struggle with social media (something I am going to work on in 2025).

I do miss keeping an organized spreadsheet of my reading however and an analog journal of my current reads. I have a few ideas for how to reignite this and it includes a printer and a glue stick (more in a post soon).

People say the alternative is The Storygraph. I have tried it and I did enjoy the stats feature, but I am just realizing that I don't care that much about the stats. I reread so often that the stats start to feel like measurements that are quite useless for me personally. I doesn't matter to me how many pages I've read, in what format, in what genre, etc. This is a very individual thing for me. I want to be able to look at my own computer or notebook and review my books and remember how I felt when reading them.

time to delete goodreads for the second time

This could easily turn into a conversation about how much I loathe what Amazon has done to the book industry and how Goodreads is more of a way to study how people read than it is to help you organize your bookish life, but that's an obvious statement at this point. It's simply that I want to go back a time when I could reach on my bedside and "see" what I am working on, own my own thoughts, and not have to wait to log into a device to remember what books I'm reading.

It will take a long time to transfer (probably not that long) my books over to my google spreadsheet, and I will continue to work on this for quite some time. In a dream, I'll add the covers to my steady TBR in the spreadsheet and size them to fit, and take time to reorganize my kindle collections so that when I open my Kindle Fire I can see the pretty covers. 

Here are the sections I want to have in my spreadsheet:

1. Books I own physically
2. Digital books I own (that I don't also own physically)
3. List of books I haven't read
4. Sheet for Thomas Hardy
5. Sheet for Anita Brookner
6. Sheet for Dostoevsky
7. Sheet for Tolstoy
8. Sheet for Baldwin
9. Sheet for Morrison
10. Sheet for seasonal TBRs

That is just a starter. I am sure when I am organizing it, more will come to me. 

I am excited honestly. I have a new journal for reviews, a new journal for favorite quotes, and a stack at my bedside. Let the fun begin.

When I Can't Sleep, I Download Books

I've purchased a few physical editions of books I have given away (Pride and Prejudice, Far From the Madding Crowd, etc.) and when I can't sleep at night (which seems to be every night), I buy books :)

Coffee. My best friend. My soul mate.

inside is a freshly poured over light roast 

2 reading weeks left in the year. I don't rush my reading. I don't make myself finish anything, but I have downloaded some KU novellas to get me through the long, worry filled, anxious nights.

Happy reading.

The Reasons That I Don't Use Goodreads or Storygraph To Track My Reading

Updated October 22, 2022

I've returned to Goodreads. They updated the user interface. I have a brand new account with no friends on it and it's set to private. I've found value in digitally keeping track of my books and having my kindle auto add to my list. I still don't set yearly goals, but I am enjoying it now that I am back. The clean slate feels good too.

It's an unpopular opinion for sure.

When I had a BookTube channel, I did an entire "Coffee Chat" about my reasons for deleting Goodreads, and it was one of my most viewed videos.

People were sandwiched between "that's ridiculous, it's a way to connect with other readers, you're missing out", and "I hate (either Goodreads or Storygraph)".

Source: Stock Photos

Here are my reasons for avoiding Goodreads:

1. Goodreads gave me anxiety. The interface of the website is claustrophobic. 
2. I despise advertisements. It's why I avoid Bookstagram and I PAY for YouTube premium. I will do most anything to avoid being manipulated all day by big corporations.
3. When I marked a book as "currently reading", no less than 2 people would say, "I read that... just WAIT until chapter 3" - or such other spoilery BS. 
4. The "pressure" to check if a bookish friend read a book I was considering. After seeing their hate review, even if I didn't want it to, it DID affect how I felt going into the book.

Here are my reasons for avoiding Storygraph:

1. With the exception (thank God) of the gross advertisements, Storygraph has the same "follow a friend" ... "comment on their choices" structure that I want to barf about
2. There are NO other reasons to avoid Storygraph. Great company. Wonderful bookish insights about your reading habits. 

What I do to keep track of my reading instead:

1. Paper
2. Pen
3. Good ol' memory
4. Stickers and maybe a highlighter or two
5. This blog. I will catalog most of what I read here. It's a diary of sorts and a place to organize my bookish thoughts 

I enjoyed the good old days. You know the ones that took place a mere 10+ years ago :) 

I used to enjoy going to the library, walking around, reading the back of a novel and deciding then and there to bring it home and read it!

I like browsing book stories and purchasing what called to me that time.

I didn't ever "log it" anywhere. I didn't check to see what others thought about it. I formulated my own opinions after I started reading it. 

I see the utility to keeping a record of what you read. Recording your thoughts about certain authors and novels, and of course I see the utility in sharing those thoughts.

THIS alone is the reason for the past few years I've gone through about 5 iterations of how to do so. BookTube channel. Lots of live streams for reading sprints and chatting about unpopular bookish topics. Bookstagram. A fancy blog and now this blog- where I'm staying forevermore :)

What makes me sad about bookish sharing

It's a sad shame when we realize that people don't talk about and share their love of the great works, and social media bookish corners of the internet are taken over by prize lists (no judgment) or YA fantasy (also no judgment). I'd just like to see an explosion of deep discussions on the GREAT works. The GREAT writers. There are a few channels I follow who do focus on this, but they are few and far between.

I think that a lot of greatness has come from the connections that social media can provide. Far more harm has come from them (my opinion), but I crave a more honest and deep connection to other readers, and I have had to accept that (for now) I won't get to experience that much. 

The things that people enjoy about the "connected feeling" that Goodreads and Storygraph provide, are not things that I enjoy. 

It doesn't feel socially connecting, it feels comparative and manipulative. 

I told you at the start this was an unpopular opinion. I've heard a zillion things about my theories and concepts, but they are true and valid to me. 

I'm aiming to read far less books, and I reread so many others that I can basically remember what I read. It's only when I go through phases of reading recommended novels or genre fiction that I "lose track" of what I've read.

I'm just a vinyl playing, analog kinda woman and I ain't ashamed of it.

I'll leave the digital spaces that foster bookish connectability to the cool kids. I'll just be thumbing through used copies of Proust on the outside looking in. And I don't mind it at all. 

Happy reading and analog tracking my slow living friends.