The boyfriend and I are moving again next weekend… again. I thought when we found the house we’re renting now, we’d be able to stay for most of our time in small town Minnesota, but earlier this summer our landlord decided to sell the house. It hasn’t sold yet, but we decided we couldn’t stay in a place where we’d have no guarantees after our original lease was up. It’s been a stressful time, trying to decide if we should move and then where to go — the rental market in this area is terrible — but I’m glad it’ll be done with in a week.
Sunday Salon
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 haven’t finished a single book this week because I’ve spent all of my free time watching the Olympics. I’ve started a few and read a few chapters here and there, but for the most part I haven’t spent any significant time with books. And really, I’m ok with. I think I needed the break.
Like most people online, I’ve been less than impressed with NBC’s Olympic coverage. I’m sick and tired of watching quarter- and semi-final heats for the same sports over and over again, but missing the finals or matches from less well-known sports during the prime time coverage. Even their coverage of the gymnastics finals was weird.
Even though July isn’t technically over until Tuesday, today feels like the right day to think back on my reading this month, which has been drastically different than normal.
So far I’ve read 10 books in July — eight fiction and only two nonfiction! I normally read about 60 percent nonfiction and 40 percent fiction, so this is pretty unusual. I’ve also unconsciously avoided all of the review copies on my shelves, focusing instead on books I own and books from the library. It’s felt a little bit like being on a reading vacation, if that makes any sense at all.
Just about a month ago I decided that I was going to go on a book buying hiatus for the summer. There were two small exceptions — if I visited a town with a bookstore, I could buy one book; if it was an independent bookstore, I could buy two books.
So far, I think I’ve been able to follow through with the spirit of the hiatus — not bringing more physical books into my house — if not exactly the law of my exceptions.
This post is coming to you live from my family’s cabin in northern Wisconsin. It’s my first weekend at the lake this summer, and I am loving it. We have spotty cell phone reception, at best, so I’m not even sure if this is going to post… I guess we’ll see!
Picking books for the lake is a pleasurable challenge. I don’t like to bring books that I’m going to feel obligated to review since, frankly, I sometimes read after drinking a margarita or two. And I don’t normally like difficult books, since I end up putting them down for a swim or a nap pretty frequently.
I am officially out of bookshelf space in my house.
I knew I was reaching my limit before I headed to Book Expo America, but it wasn’t until I got back and started trying to find space for all of the books that I realized just how crammed everything is. Every shelf is totally full and most have books stacked on top and in front. There’s just no more room.
This week has been a week of palate cleansing reading.
Early in the week I finished reading Mary Doria Russel’s The Sparrow, which was totally and completely awesome. So totally and completely awesome, that I don’t even know what to say about it yet. The ending, which you sort of know is coming based on the structure of the story and the clues that are being dropped along the way, was a total surprise. Finishing the book also felt like an emotional punch to the stomach, which I know makes no sense but is the only thing I can think to describe what I felt when I put it down.
It’s been a pretty crazy week. Awesome. But crazy.
Thank you, everyone, for your nice words on my big announcement this week, and for my blogiversary the week before. (I’m going to draw winners for the Readers’ Survey giveaway soon, I promise!) It’s been a couple weeks of feeling warm fuzzy feelings everytime I come online. And all of this talk and general good cheer has made me even more excited for Book Expo America in a couple of weeks — fun plans are already starting to come together, including hanging out with many of my favorite bloggers. If you’re going to be at BEA, let me know so we can make sure we’ll get to connect!
Last month I read 14 books. So far this month, I finished one. What’s going on here?
I have a theory: I think my brain can only handle a certain number of books over a set period of time. If I go over that number it rebels and decides to fill itself with old episodes of Dorm Life and New Girl rather than pick up many of the books I would like to be reading. Anybody else have that problem?
