My Reading Life

Today's Top Ten Tuesday topic is Changes In My Reading Life. Grab a snack. This could be a long post.

As you may know, I am on a committee to nominate YA books for a book award. This means I have to read a boatload of YA books. Like 2-3 a week. That's a lot. This translated to some big changes in my reading life this year. Previous to this year I read 4-5 books a month on average. In the beginning of this year, I had to up my pace, but I was still only reading about 10 book a month.

Around May I hit on a way to organize my reading so that I increased the numbers of books being read. I decided at the beginning of each week which books I was going to read that week. Then, I divided each book into seven sections - one for each day of the week. Then, I made sure to read a section for each book every day that week. I could read them all from one book if I wanted, but I had to read one section per book. So if I'm reading 5 books, I have to read 5 sections per day, regardless of which books I read from. That way, they all get read that week.

In October, this all went off the rails. October was a super crazy month, health-wise, for the family. I was diagnosed with a couple of interesting things, and my kid spent a week in the hospital. Basically, I quit reading altogether. At the beginning of November, I had surgery. Now I have tons of time to read, but no brain. Well, it's getting better. I finished a book today.

My current reading life looks like lighting a candle in my library, turning on my good reading light, and settling in my reading chair. I still get interrupted by family, dogs, and my phone, but I can spend quality time there with ice on my knee and reading a book. I'm working on finishing all the books I've started in October and abandoned. Most of those are for the award, so I'm actually being productive!

How has your reading life changed?