I’m sure it comes as no surprise to those who have known me since I was a kid or just know me really well now, that I was a book nerd growing up. I’m still a nerd but in so many different ways.
My gift of choice was a gift certificate to Waldenbooks (do they still exist?). Then when I got home with my haul from said gift certificates, my mom would only let me have one book and hide the others away because otherwise I would have read them all that night. My faves were The Baby-Sitters Club and Sweet Valley High series of books. I also had a teacher recommend The Cat Who… series which I really enjoyed.
Then I got into high school and college and opportunities to read for fun were few and far between. As a grown-up, I picked up the reading bug again and discovered chick lit. I read about Shopaholics, Nannies, Devils Wearing Prada and they were fun, quick reads that didn’t tax the brain. Awesome-sauce!
While I was baking the bun in the oven who would become Brooke, I poured over pregnancy, birth & breastfeeding books. Then she was born and reading was the farthest thing from my mind for a loooooong time!
But when I got my iPhone, I discovered a whole new world of reading. The Kindle and iBooks apps. Now I could read just about anywhere and with even small amounts of time. I could read in waiting rooms, planes, even in bed after we’d turn the lights out for the night. Shortly after that, I discovered GoodReads.
Goodreads is a web site but I heard of them first from the app. It has totally increased the amount of leisure reading I do. This site helps you organize books by ones you’ve read, want to read and have already read. You can rate them and get recommendations for other books based on those ratings.
Then you can add and follow friends and see what they’ve read, are reading and want to read and if something interests you, add it to your list! If you really like being social, you can join and create groups of readers who have similar interests or are local to you for some in-person book clubbing.
There are lots of neat features but I’m going to go through them all here the one I think has motivated me most to keep reading is the Yearly Challenge. As you might expect, you set a goal for how many books you want to read this year and track it on the site. As you read books on your “currently reading” shelf, you indicate your progress. When you’ve finished it, you move it to your “read” shelf and that’s one more book you completed toward your challenge.
I had 3-4 weeks of break in between spring & summer semester of my ECE classes so I poured through 3 or 4 books and I’m actually 2 books ahead for my challenge!! I might even bump it up to 20 books for the year!!
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I’m getting ready to drive the 10 hours to Michigan, spend a kid-free week in Vegas and then do the 10 hour drive back to Tennessee so I’d love some more book recommendations. And if you’d like to friend me on Goodreads, you can find me here!
I totally recommend the author Rachel Schurig; she has a “Three Girls and a…” series and a new one called “In Search of a Love Story.” (I also think its really cool that we went to high school together!) Lacy Camey has a couple good ones out: “The Last Page” and “the Last Name Banks.” Lucy Kevin’s “Falling Fast” and “Sparks Fly” are easy reads. Also, recently discovered Stephanie Haddad– more great chick lot reads.