Well hello, Blog (and blog friends and blog readers). It’s nice to see you again!
While I don’t want to make excuses for my unexplained two week hiatus or waste my first post apologizing for disappearing, I feel like I owe at least a small story to explain what happened.
I was talking to Lu (Regular Rumination) online about the need for a break, and explained it like this: I work for a newspaper, where there is always an upcoming deadline. You never get the feeling of finishing a big project, then having a couple weeks of down time before the next deadline comes. There isn’t really a slow time of year, since we have to put out a newspaper every week no matter how much or how little happens to be going on.
Having a blog is similar. Although there aren’t any formal deadlines, the blog sometimes feels like a beast that needs to be constantly fed. More books! More reviews! More posts! I love it, but I think I finally just reached a point where I didn’t quite have enough to feed everything… so the blog (and everything associated with blogging) took a break.
But now I’m back! Reenergized and with a stack of books to write reviews of and some more ideas for posts than I’ve had in a long time. The break was good for reinvigorating all of those things, if unexpected and unannounced.
So what have I been reading during this little haitus? Lots of good stuff, I’m excited to say. I finished two books from one of my favorite nonfiction publishers, PublicAffairs: The Ascent of the A-Word (about the rise of “assholism”) and The Good Girls Revolt (about a 1970 sex discrimination lawsuit at Newsweek). And I finally got to read the buzzy book of the summer, Gillian Flynn’s Gone Girl, which was almost as awesome as everyone says it is.
Right now, I’m on a political books kick. It started on Tuesday night, when I was covering the primary election results for our county. We didn’t have any exciting local races, but it was fun to watch the vote totals come in and start thinking forward to the general election in November. And then Rachel (A Home Between Pages) posted a fantastic pre-election reading guide over at Book Riot, which fueled my politic junkie fires even further. (Seriously, the list is awesome — I wish I’d written it myself).
In keeping with that kick, I started listening to the audio book of Game Change: Obama and the Clintons, McCain and Palin, and the Race of a Lifetime by John Heilemann and Mark Halperin which is this great combination of solid political analysis and soap opera antics that I can’t put down. I even spent time packing for my upcoming move yesterday just because I wanted an excuse to keep listening to the book. I also started reading The Gospel According to The Fix, a politics 101 type of book with some great insights into the current election and American politics in general. I’m only a short way into both, but I anticipate recommending them highly.
With that, I’m going to get back to my books. I have to do some work covering an event this afternoon, so I want to squeeze in as much reading time as I can before lunch. Happy Sunday!
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Welcome back! I am definitely feeling like blogging, commenting and all things associated with that have slipped recently. Too much going on now that it’s summer, I guess. I am trying not to feel guilty about it.
That’s probably part of it. I tend to do a lot of blog work on Saturdays, and it’s hard to want to spend Saturday inside when it’s lovely outside.
It’s good to see you back on here. It sounds like a break was just what you needed!
It felt good to take a break. I just need to hang on to this good, non-stressed feeling as long as possible 🙂
Yay, welcome back! I’m glad your break let you get recharged. 😀
Thanks!
Welcome back! I’m on my blogging break for exactly that reason of the blog seeming like a monster that constantly has to be fed. It’s nice having a break, but I’m looking forward to coming back in (hopefully) September.
I’m looking forward to you (hopefully) coming back too 🙂 It’s funny how easy it is to go from feeling like you have a million things to say to struggling to feed a blog beast. I’m glad I’m not the only one!
Glad you are back; we all need to take a break especially in the summer.
Absolutely. I forget how much the season impacts my mood and what I want to be doing, even though it’s totally obvious.
I’ve had a lot of breaks this summer, which means I haven’t noticed when others have taken breaks. Here it’s been so much travel… I set off again tomorrow to take my daughter to Iowa.
That’s right, back to college! I hope you have safe drive and she gets settled soon 🙂
I love it when I find an audio book so good that I find excuses to do stuff just so I can keep listening!
Welcome back.
I love that too. That’s when I KNOW the audio book is great because I truly hate doing chores.
Welcome back! I’m just about to take a break myself – I’ve got so much on the go, between the tourist season at the shop and an upcoming house move – and the pressure to generate new posts is completely outweighing the pleasure of blogging at the moment. I hope I come back as refreshed and full of ideas as you have – it sounds like you’ve read some brilliant books and that your hiatus has really done the job! Happy reading!
Yes, we’re moving in a couple weeks too. I probably should have waited to come back until after that… but oh well. I did finally read some great books, after being in a total reading slump because of the Olympics. I’m excited to finally write and share the reviews.
Glad you’re back! You have every right to step away for a while, and it seems your fellow bloggers can sympathize. I know I’ll be offline for Labor Day weekend, so I’m looking forward to letting my brain rejuvinate…
If I was going to the lake, I’d definitely be stepping away. We’re moving that weekend, however, so I’ll probably be away anyway, just not for fun reasons 🙂
Ah, didn’t realize you were moving! Let me know how that goes and good luck with everything…
Welcome back! It’s always good to take a break from blogging. You’re right about blogs being something that always need to be “fed”. Enjoy your week!
I’m glad to see you blogging again! Hmm … I didn’t even know “assholism” was a word. 🙂
Well, the author made it him — his word for the phenomenon of seeing more and more assholes in the world. It was a pretty funny book, actually. I’m excited to write more about it!
Welcome back! Breaks should always be guilt-free.
Welcome back!!!
I found Game Change so addicting. I kept reading whole pages aloud to my roommate.
It really was! I loved the audio, but I wish I’d had it in print to make passages better. The stuff on John and Elizabeth Edwards was like watching (so to speak) a train wreck.