Today’s Book Blogger Appreciation topic is such a good one, I don’t feel like it needs much of an introduction:

Day 5: One of the unfortunate side effects of reading and blogging like rockstars seems to be a tendency toward burnout. How do you keep things fresh on your blog and in your reading?

I’ve been a book blogger for almost eight years, which doesn’t make me the most experienced book blogger out there, but certainly among the most seasoned. Over that time, I’ve adopted a bunch of different strategies for how to blog successfully without burnout.

But before I share what’s working for me right now, I need to mention that these strategies have changed a lot over time. For example, I used to work best when I sat down on Sundays and drafted all of my posts for the week. Last fall, that just stopped working for me, so I’ve been working through some new ways of blogging that are a better fit right now. Basically, don’t be afraid to change when something stops working.

With that caveat in mind, here are some strategies for avoiding burn out that are working for me at this precise stage in my blogging life:

1. Work out a schedule. I made a bargain with myself about eight months ago that I would stop worrying about blogging every day and just try to post three days per week (Sunday, Tuesday, and Thursday). Even on weeks when I have more ideas and more posts drafted, I’m still pretty strict about that schedule (events like BBAW aside – I posted Monday, Wednesday and Friday this week to match the topic schedule). I don’t stress out when I miss one of those posts (often Sunday when I’m gone for the weekend), but I also don’t often let myself to do more than that.
2. Write a little every day. This is a new practice for me. I used to do most of my blogging in batches every Sunday, but ran into trouble when I got to Sundays when I wasn’t in the mood to write… then what? Since January 1, I’ve tried to spend a little time – maybe 20 to 30 minutes – each morning doing some writing. Sometimes that period feels like a mountain, and I don’t always manage to fit it in, but when I do I feel good about what I’ve accomplished before breakfast.
3. Stop doing the things you hate. I get that a general trend in blogging is big, beautiful, well-composed pictures. But I am not a photographer, and I find it tedious to do all the work of setting up a “photo shoot” with my books for each post. So for reviews I just use an image of a book cover. I make a lot of collages in PicMonkey, and a rely on random other photos I take with my phone to help illustrate other posts. And when I don’t have an idea for a photo? I just don’t use one.
4. Be selective about review copies. I totally get the allure of review copies from publishers or book touring companies – FREE BOOKS! – but be really careful with them. If you let it, seeing all those books that you’re “supposed” to review on a shelf can cause anxiety. I’ve learned to deal with this by being more selective about the books I accept, and coming to the realization that it doesn’t matter if I get to them or not. There are few, if any, actual consequences to accepting a book for review consideration and not actually getting around to reading it. A review copy is not a contract or an exchange… it’s a publicity tool publishers use to build buzz.
5. Allow yourself to have a hard reset. Around November or December I always start to feel overwhelmed and tired of pretty much everything. Then magically in January I get all energized again. I think this is because I let the end of the year be a stopping point. Anything left unreviewed or unwritten just gets abandoned and I start with a clean slate – with nothing hanging over my head, I feel less overwhelmed.
6. Remember that this is a hobby. This is the hardest one for me, honestly, but it’s the most important. Blogging is supposed to be fun, a way to connect with other readers and find great books and talk about our reading lives. When it becomes a point of stress or negativity, allow yourself to take a break.

The biggest thing I can say is that you have to allow your blog and your reading life to remain flexible. Life changes, often at a rapid pace, and it’s unrealistic to think that your blog won’t need to change as well. Let yourself abandon things that don’t work and be open to trying new things when the moment arises. That’s the best way I know to keep a blog going.

Book Blogger Appreciation Week is being hosted at The Estella Society by Ana (Things Mean A Lot), Jenny (Reading the End), Heather (Capricious Reader), and Andi (Estella’s Revenge). Visit the website for more information about this awesome community event! 

I’ve written a few times before about how it’s hard for me to think about what my reading life would be like without book blogging. I started Sophisticated Dorkiness just a few days before I graduated from college, so all of my “adult” reading life has been influenced and affected by the other bloggers and readers I’ve met and built relationships online. That makes today’s Book Blogger Appreciation Week topic really interesting to tackle:

Day 3: What have you read and loved because of a fellow blogger?

I’d venture to say that basically all of my contemporary fiction picks come from other bloggers or the good folks who contribute to Book Riot. Fun fact, Book Riot was actually started by a bunch of book bloggers, and I was lucky enough to be one of the original contributors. The community of contributors and readers on the site is really amazing, and I get a ton of good suggestions from them. Our managing editor, Amanda Nelson, recently did an interview talking a bit about how Book Riot got started, if you are curious about that.

Anyway, I wish that I were able to grab a book and say specifically who convinced me to read it, but most of the time it’s more of a general buzz of excitement around a book that comes from the bloggers I read, folks I follow on Twitter, and the Book Riot crew. I think this list could be incredibly long – I read a lot based on what other people love – but I tried to keep it narrowed down. And in the case where I can remember specifically where I heard about a book from, I’ve left a link. Otherwise, here are 10 books I loved based on blogger buzz:

1. The Turner House by Angela Flournoy
2. Everything I Never Told You by Celeste Ng
3. The Shore by Sara Taylor (Andi at Estella’s Revenge)
4. Re Jane by Patricia Park
5. Sorcerer to the Crown by Zen Cho
6. Blackout by Sarah Hepola (Candace at Beth Fish Reads)
7. Fates and Furies by Lauren Groff
8. Just Mercy by Bryan Stevenson (Shannon at River City Reading)
9. Everything Everything by Nicola Yoon (Kelly at Stacked/Book Riot)
10. Americanah by Chimamanda Ngozi Adichie

I could go on and on and on with this list, but I’ll cap it at 10 and throw the question back at folks who are more regular readers: Which books have you picked up because of a rave or review you read here at Sophisticated Dorkiness?

Book Blogger Appreciation Week is being hosted at The Estella Society by Ana (Things Mean A Lot), Jenny (Reading the End), Heather (Capricious Reader), and Andi (Estella’s Revenge). Visit the website for more information about this awesome community event! 

Some of the links in this post are affiliate links through Amazon. If you make a purchase through any of those links, I will receive a small commission.

Hooray, today is the first day of Book Blogger Appreciation Week! Although I’m probably not going to be able to participate to the extent that I originally hoped, I still managed to have a few posts drafted before life got complicated last week. And today’s topic is such a good one:

Day 1: Introduce yourself by telling us about five books that represent you as a person or your interests/lifestyle.

When I sat down to start working on this topic, I assumed it was going to be pretty simple. Pick five books, write about them a little bit, call it a day. But then as I started to ponder what it means to have books represent you as a person or your life… I got all tangled up and had massive writer’s block. So this is my best attempt to pick five books that give a sense of me and what I love.

1. Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows by J.K. Rowling – I’ve written about how part of the reason the Harry Potter series has resonated with me is because of age. I grew up alongside Harry, Ron and Hermoine and saw myself reflected in their struggles and their challenges. The Magicians is another favorite series for the same reason. I picked those books up just out of college and got to struggle with Big Life Questions right along with the characters in a book.
2. Ten Letters: The Stories Americans Tell Their President by Eli Saslow – By day, I’m the editor of a small town community newspaper. One of the things I love about my job is finding unexpected stories in my community. Eli Saslow takes this idea to the next level in 10 Letters, using President Obama’s tradition of reading 10 letters from citizens each day to find some hidden stories about what it means to be an American. It’s a touching, lovely book.
3. Tiny Beautiful Things: Advice on Love and Life from Dear Sugar by Cheryl Strayed – This book is a collection of advice columns novelist/essayist Cheryl Strayed wrote at The Rumpus under the persona of Sugar. I don’t think they’re great when read straight through – some of it starts to feel a little repetitive – but they’re perfect to dip in and out of when you need a little bit of kick-in-the-pants empathy. If you need a preview, check out two of my favorites: The Baby Bird and Write Like a Motherfucker.
4. The Spirit Catches You and You Fall Down by Anne Fadiman – This book is one of my favorite pieces of narrative nonfiction of all time. It’s a beautifully written story about the cultural differences between a Hmong family and the doctors caring for their daughter who suffered from debilitating seizures. It’s one I often recommend to people who are nervous about trying narrative nonfiction for the first time, similar to a more recent book, The Immortal Life of Henrietta Lacks by Rebecca Skloot.
5. The Blind Assassin by Margaret Atwood – Margaret Atwood is one of my favorite authors, and it’s hard to pick just one of her books. For whatever reason, The Blind Assassin holds a special place in my heart even though I know it’s one of her more divisive books. I think I love it because it represents the kind of literary, strange, genre-bending fiction that has become a staple of my reading life.

So there you have it… after much hemming and hawing and debating, five books that I think represent me as a reader and a person.

If you were doing this exercise, what five books would you choose?

Book Blogger Appreciation Week is being hosted at The Estella Society by Ana (Things Mean A Lot), Jenny (Reading the End), Heather (Capricious Reader), and Andi (Estella’s Revenge). Visit the website for more information about this awesome community event! 

Some of the links in this post are affiliate links through Amazon. If you make a purchase through any of those links, I will receive a small commission.

Hey friends. It’s been quite a week, so much so that I don’t really have much of anything to say to fill in my normal Sunday post.

It probably makes sense to start with the low of the week: the boyfriend’s father passed away late Saturday morning after about a week in the hospital. He’d been having some ongoing health problems, but he ended up in the hospital after taking a fall in their house. He spent much of the week sedated and on a ventilator, but eventually all of the medication and stress on top of lung and heart issues was too much.

The boyfriend went out to be with his mom on Wednesday, so I’ve been holding things down at home since then. It’s been a huge roller coaster, but I think everyone feels a little relief that he went peacefully and before his quality of life had diminished too drastically. I’ll be heading out to Milwaukee sometime early this week to do whatever I can, then we’ll be returning home together.

In all of that, at least one exciting thing has fallen to the wayside — I bought a new car!

As I mentioned last Sunday, my current car was starting to have some problems. They turned out to be fixable at a reasonable price, so that was good. But I decided to go ahead with my planned new car purchase anyway and picked up a 2016 Subaru Impreza from the dealership on Wednesday. This is the first time I’ve ever owned a new car — it feels like one of those adult milestones that I finally got to cross off.

With all of that going on, I haven’t been doing much except trying to keep my head above water. A huge thank you needs to go out to my parents, who have been more helpful during a crazy week than I could have ever asked them to be, and to friends and coworkers who have been incredibly kind. I keep trying to think of something appropriate to end this post with, but I’m just drawing a blank. So, thanks in advance for all your well wishes and good thoughts.