Booking Through Thursday: Are your book choices influenced by friends and family? Do their recommendations carry weight for you? Or do you choose your books solely by what you want to read?
This is a great question and one I'm asked fairly often. (Or at least I'm asked where I find the books that I choose to read.) The answer is twofold. First, I definitely listen to the recommendations of my friends and coworkers (my family members rarely recommend books to me). Many of my friends/coworkers have the same taste in books and I always research any book that they recommend.
But the second part of my answer is that after I research a book, I will only read it if it truly seems interesting to me. I don't read books just because someone recommends them or because they are the latest "hot" book. I have to be interested in the story. However, I will make an occasional exception. There are a couple of friends whose opinion I trust so much that if they say I simply MUST read a book, even after I've decided the topic is not of interest, I will do it. That is how I read the simply divine Water for Elephants by Sara Gruen. I have never regretted reading that book.
How about you? How do you decide what books to read?
Musing Mondays: Do you have to carve out time in your day for reading (due to work and other obligations), or does your reading just happen naturally?I don't "carve out" a specific time for reading. Reading is something that happens very organically for me. I am never without a book and I fit in little bits of reading throughout the day. It is very rare for me to carve out a large block of time specifically to read. I read the newspaper while I eat breakfast, I read a few pages of whatever book I'm reading during lunch, I read while waiting for appointments, I sometimes read in the evenings during the commercials of my favorite shows, or while sitting at the kitchen table if my kids have monopolized the TV. The time that I have designated as reading time, is right before bed. I can not go to sleep without reading for at least 20 minutes. Most times I don't remember a single word that I read the next morning and I have to reread those pages, but reading in bed is my sleeping pill. That is the only time I "carve out" specifically for reading.
How about you? When do you do your reading?
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5 comments:
My reading habits are very similar to yours. People ask me how I have so much time to read, and it's just that I have a book everywhere I go and I sneak in bits here and there.
A little bit of both. If someone suggests something, I'll look into it and see if it's my style of book. If I come across something, I do the same. I just love books, so I go through and find what speaks to me. Which is also why sometimes a book sits on my shelf/in a bin/hidden for ages until I get around to it. I have to be in the mood for certain reads, as well!
I am rarely influenced by anyone. I find my choices by spotting titles on the shelves at the store when I grocery shop, by book blurbs in People magazine, by browsing the New Arrivals at the library. I'll read the first page or two of whatever catches my eye...if it hasn't caught my interest by then, I don't buy it or check it out. As to reading, I used to read as you do, before the grandboys entered my life. Now, I DO have to carve out time. I try not to let it bother me, but reading is one of the greatest joys in life to me, along with writing and gardening. I miss it when I don't get a chance to do it often.
I decide what to read pretty much the same way. It doesn't matter how much everyone is raving about something. If it doesn't interest me, I won't read it. I once made an exception to that rule when a roommate thrust a book into my hand and insisted that I HAD to read it. And that was the beginning of my Harry Potter obsession.
I fit in reading when I can, but it seems like I've been making less and less time for it lately. I need to do better.
My regular reading is before going to sleep and at other random times when I can grab an opportunity. I seem to be getting less of those, too much time reading blogs :)
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