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Last weekend, I went to Delaware to visit my nephews for their birthdays. I had a little extra time after everyone went to school and work on Monday, so I decided to take my books to the beach! In the early days of this blog, I used to spend a lot of time reading non-fiction at the beach, so it felt all too appropriate to take my books there on a little outing!
I’ve been tracking my reading for long enough now to know that I usually hit a reading slump in March that tends to stretch into April. But that doesn’t mean it’s not frustrating while I’m in it, especially because this particular slump seemed to last well into April.
But just like that, I found myself full-on reading mode the last week of April, devouring two books in three days. (I probably would have finished more, but I had family in town for the weekend.)
I’ll be honest. I read very little in March, especially compared to my usual reading pace. For whatever reason, my brain just wasn’t having words. (It was more interested in portraits with plants.) But there was one book I finished in March, and that was my new book!! Between final edits and recording the audio version, it’s safe to say I read through it several times.
Yes, I’m aware that we’re ten days into March and I’m finally getting around to blogging about the two books I finished in February. What can I say, I’ve been working on some other projects? And I did start a lot more books in February, these were just the only two I finished.
I generally have a rule when I share what I’ve read for the month. I only share books I’ve finished reading. The truth is, I start many more books than I share here on the blog, but many of them just don’t hold my interest or I’m not feeling them at the moment. So my rule here is that I’m not going to blog about something unless I’ve finished it.
I’ll admit that things have been pretty quiet here on the blog, but that’s because I’ve been working on putting sme pretty big projects out into the world!
First, I turned my ebook, Try It & See, into a physical book!
I know we’re already a week into January, but I still wanted to blog the books I read in December. It was definitely a lighter month for reading, without the benefit of a reading retreat and with my focus on a big project (that I’ll be announcing soon). I also spent the final week of December in Georgia with family, and while a trip to the beach seems like an opportunity to read, when you’re sharing a house with five kids under the age of six, reading opportunities are rare.
Still, I managed to finish some noteworthy books last month.
After a year on my TBR pile, I finally got around to Cultish by Amanda Montell. I’ll admit that when I first attempted this book, I couldn’t get into it, but when I gave it a go last month, I devoured it in a few days. I love how Montell weaves traditional cults with explorations into MLMs and popular workout trends. This book is a must-read for anyone interested in how language shapes our behavior (or who wants to understand the pull of culty groups).
I consider myself lucky to get my hands on my next book in December, Jenny Odell’s Saving Time. Odell is the author of one of my favorite books, How to Do Nothing, and when I heard she was working on a new book, I was more than a little excited. Technically, Saving Time doesn’t come out until March, but I was able to get a digital review copy. Like her previous book, Saving Time is a book to be savored, as it bounces between research and observations on the different ways we view and experience time. I’ll admit that I didn’t find this book as earth-shattering as How to Do Nothing, likely because it seems that Odell and I have similar reading tastes – I had read a number of the books she sites in Saving Time. But I’d still emphatically recommend this book, and I look forward to reading it again when it’s published and I can get my hands on a physical copy.
My final book of the month was a belated birthday present to myself. Ruth Asawa: All is Possible is a collection of essays and photographs from an exhibition of the same name held at David Zwirner Gallery in 2021, an exhibition that I saw and that blew my mind, not least of all because they displayed the doors from Asawa’s Noe Valley home, which Asawa carved herself. If you’re looking for a primer on Asawa’s truly incredible life, I’d start with the biography Everything She Touched. But this book is such a beautiful rumination on Asawa’s art and process that if you’re a fan of her work (which you should be) it’s definitely one to add to your collection.
The fact that I only finished two books in November doesn’t reflect the amount of time I spent reading. I actually started a lot more books, but many were tedious or long, and so I haven’t finished them. I’m hoping to wrap a few up in December so I can share them next month. But in the mean time, I really enjoyed the two books I did finish in November.
While this month’s books were a bit of a mixed bag (some I loved, some were more meh), I’m most excited about how much I managed to read this month. After feeling like I was in a reading slump for big chunks of this year, it was nice to get into a really serious groove.
The last two months marked some unusual activity in my reading habits. First, I was in a serious reading slump in August (I only finished one book all month) which carried over into the start of September. Thankfully, I’ve found my way out of it now. Second, I read a book from of the library!!!