Joy of Reading 5

Contemplating on the joys of reading during Bout of Books Read-A-Thon Jan 2022, I consider how that joy is spread. It sounds very missionary, very much like proselytizing, but how do you spread joy and reading at the same time. So here goes.

 Joy 5 is Reading with friends

Have you ever read a book at the same time as your friends? It's an opportunity to share what you are learning, enjoying, and even disliking. 

Reading with friends gives you an outlet to discuss the book. Do you like the writing style? Is the genre suitable for the content? Are you getting anything out of the book? What about the author? Is the writer a favorite of yours or your friends? Will you read anything by them? Maybe you share your delight in the topic, be it history, science, a craft, or a time period. 

The best books leave you yearning to share them with your friends. Just make certain you get your copy back if you lend it out!

If you are gritting your teeth and saying "I must finish this book because Z is reading it," you should probably bail on the book and give it away or back to the library. Your friends will be fine with it. After all, not every book is written for every audience.

Group Reading

I like to read books with friends in a group or a book club. This is an opportunity to read the book at the same time or within the same month and then get together to discuss the book.

Book clubs come in a variety of flavors: 

• Read the book, talk for a few minutes then chat and gossip about other things or books.
• Use discussion questions to talk about the book for a set time, say an hour, staying on topic. 
• Read the book, listen to the author speak about it and answer questions. This version may be informal or an prepared presentation.
  

Over the past two years, I've been part of all three types of reading groups. If you read the books as part of a group, you'll probably get more out of it.

Just recently I stumbled upon the Gilder Lehrman Institute of American History https://www.gilderlehrman.org/ . They host a series of talks and Q&A sessions with authors and scholars of American History. It's an opportunity to read with a group and learn about the past.

I leave you with the suggestion that you read books together with your friends. Pick a book, share it, or read it at the same time. Then talk about it. It's much more fun than moaning about being home in the grey and the cold.

Joys of Reading 4 - Bout of Books Read-a-thon - Jan 2022

 

We’re half way through the January Bout of Books Read-a-thon for January 2022 and I’m thinking about how happy reading makes me. It’s a subtle form of joy that creeps into my body and imbues my soul with calm. Reading is all the more joyous when shared with others.

Joy 4 - Recommending Books

What’s more joy-filled than sharing a good book with friends, acquaintances and even near strangers. As librarians, we are taught to evaluate books, read them, and recommend them to anyone who asks. I learned that skill early in my career while working at NYPL at reference desks and helplines.

As a librarian, I often recommended books I hadn’t read, didn’t have an interest in. I was told, “it’s a skill you need to embrace.” So I did. Suddenly, a world of books in genre I had never read were open to me. What a joy!

Sharing books through reviews

When I began writing reviews, in 1989, I was able to recommend all sorts of books with readers far and wide. Some readers were strangers who became first acquaintances and then friends. Others were friends and neighbors who were always asking me to recommend ‘a good book.’

In my retirement, I continue to spread the joy of books and reading (and listening). While I write tons of reviews on Goodreads based on my own eclectic reading choices, I also review and judge audio books for a general reading, or listening, audience for AudioFile Magazine http://www.audiofilemagazine.com.

So, what book would I recommend to you today?

“The Baker Street Letters” by Michael Robertson https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/8087812-the-baker-street-letters. It’s a charming book about two British lawyer/solicitors who are renting the building at 221 Baker Street in London. Their lease requires they answer letters address to Sherlock Holmes. That’s right, Arthur Conan Doyle’s most famous detective lives on and gets tons of queries every year. When the lawyers find a dead body in their offices and their files ransacked, they realize there’s a mystery to be solved posthaste. I hope you enjoy this recommendation. Want more? Check out my Goodreads page https://www.goodreads.com/user/show/1557957-miriam 

Best of all, I get to share the books with friends. I’ll write more about that tomorrow.

Joys of Reading 3 - Bout of Books Read-a-then Jan 2022

On day 3 of the Bout of Books Read-a-thon (Jan 2022), I’m concentrating on a personal joy of reading, especially reading in place.

Joy 3 - Learning Something New

What’s the best thing about reading and books? You can learn something new with each book you open, with every new subject you explore.

Learning doesn’t have to stop when you graduate high school, college, or even graduate school. Learning should continue for your entire life.  In fact, it’s called life-learning and, for me, it’s the highlight of my day and week.

Life-long learning

There’s nothing like exploring a new subject through a book. Now that I’m retired, I can take a deep dive into a subject, explore a tangent, or even dig into those small niggling details an author throws into a book. 

Historical fiction, be it a straightforward story or a mystery always teaches me something. In the past few months of reading historical fiction, I’ve learned about stock market manipulation and crashes, lots about World War I and World War II, and even about ladies’ fashion. 

This weekend I read “The Blackbird Girls” by Anna Blankman  https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/40939440-the-blackbird-girlswhich was set in the aftermath of the nuclear plant explosion at Chernobyl. The book, written for teens and adults, focused on the fate of two young teens as they were sent to Leningrad while their mothers (the fathers having died in the aftermath of the nuclear meltdown) healed, found work, and were finally able to bring their daughters home. I learned not only about how Russia covered up the incident, but also about Russian life and struggles in 1986. 

Reading fiction or non-fiction brings me joy and an opportunity to learn something new. What types of books bring you joy as you read in place today?

Joys of Reading 2 - Bout of books (Jan 2022)

 On day 2 of the Bout of Books Read-a-thon (Jan 2022), I’m contemplating which types of books bring me joy. Here goes.

Joy 2 - Going New Places through books

Books take us places, new and old, through words, descriptions, and illustrations. I know in the summer, I explored travelogues and books about places. (See my August posts on this blog.) This is particularly fun when reading in place, when savoring the adventure while in your armchair or on a beach.

Where’s the joy? It’s two fold. 

The first is going to a new place, a place you always wanted to go and haven’t yet. It’s learning about the buildings, the history, and culture in anticipation of an in-person adventure. Perhaps you saw a movie or TV show about a  place and now you want to know all about it. Books will take you there! What Joy!

The second joy is re-encountering or re-experiencing a city or place you went to in the past and just loved. Maybe you went to a city as a child and now want to “see” it through adult eyes? Or you want to learn more about a place you’ve just been to but didn’t have the opportunity to take a tour or see the sights. Joyfully, books can take you to a city or country and show you ‘everything’ about the place.

Maps and illustrations will set the location in context, letting you “see” what buildings look like, or a river, or the countryside.

In all, taking time to read and savor a book about a place will bring you joy along with an adventure.

Let me know if you want a reading suggestion.

That’s my reading nugget for day 2.

Joy of Reading - Bout Of Books 1 Jan 2022

I have friends who read, who read voraciously, quickly, slowly, and sadly, some who say they don't read much at all any more.  As Bout of Books for January 2022 begins, I want to focus on the joys of reading, of what reading can do for you.

Joy 1

Reading is the best way to start your day. You get to reacquaint yourself with the book you were reading the night before. You can start a new adventure. Best of all, you can start you day with a quiet moment reading in place, at home, or even on public transportation.

Start your day with a book

For those of you who say, "I don't have time to read," the truth might be that you don't set aside time to read and relax each day. 

I've started my morning with a book for as long as I can remember. Sometimes I read for a few minutes as I was eating breakfast, other times, like this morning, I finished the last 80 pages in a thriller. In each and every instance of reading in place, reading with joy, I am taking time to refresh myself and to dive into a book or at the very least an article.

Where's the joy? The joy is diving into a story and letting it encompass you. The joy is savoring the words, the illustrations, and the setting of the story. Best of all, it's a chance to start the day with something other than the news.

I leave you today with the suggestion that you take a few minutes to read every morning, be it five minutes or fifty. Let the joy of the written (or spoken) work work its way through your whole self. And ENJOY.

Tomorrow, Day 2, I'll share more ways to en-JOY reading in place!

Reading in Place in January 2022

 I am participating in the Bout of Books January 2022 https://boutofbooks.blogspot.com/ 

The theme this year, as last, is “Reading In Place.”

I haven’t picked a theme for my posts this time, which means I’m going to write about whatever I’m reading each of the seven days of the read-a-thon. 

You’ll find reviews of my reading on my Goodreads feed https://www.goodreads.com/user/show/1557957-miriam

I can’t wait to get started!!

Here’s info about Bout of Books:

The Bout of Books readathon is organized by Amanda Shofner and Kelly Rubidoux Apple. It’s a weeklong readathon that begins 12:01am Monday, January 3rd and runs through Sunday, January 9th in YOUR time zone. Bout of Books is low-pressure. There are reading sprints, Twitter chats, and exclusive Instagram challenges, but they’re all completely optional. For all Bout of Books 33 information and updates, be sure to visit the Bout of Books blog. - From the Bout of Books team

Reading ARCs

 

Over the past few years, I’ve been reviewing books regularly for our local independent bookstore. That means I’m often reading and reviewing books before they hit the market. “What?” you ask. “You get to read books before they come out? How does that work and what is it like?”

It’s often strange to be reading books before they launch but after five years of reviewing for the bookstore, I’ve gotten used to it.

First of all, I’m reading lots of reviews as I always have. That’s what librarians do, they read reviews, decide what fits their patrons’ reading interests. Librarians and booksellers order books, often months before they come out so they are ready for reading on launch day. With that in mind, I get to sort through upcoming books (ARCs) the bookstore gets and decide what I want to review months before the book comes out.

What’s an ARC? ARCs are Authorized Review Copies or Advance Reader Copies. There are also eARCs, same thing just digital. Publishers print copies of the books before they are ready for distribution (three to six months ahead of time) and send these ARCs to libraries, booksellers, and to magazines, newspapers, and journals for review.

The thing about ARCs is they aren’t quite ready for mass distribution. Pictures, maps, indices, bibliographies, bios, and more can be missing. Early ARCs may be missing page numbers in tables of contents and even page numbers themselves.

As a reviewer, you have to remember that the ‘extras’ will be in the official, published version. Glaring errors may be caught, grammatical and spelling errors may still be with the final version and that’s frustrating. Of course, there are disclaimers and notices that remind reviewers not to quote from the ARC.

ARCs come in all shapes and sizes, in all varieties. Some publishers are known for providing the cover art, others keep the covers plain vanilla although that trend seems to be going away. Academic publishers don’t usually send out ARCs unless they are distributing fiction and even then, they may not print ARCs. You have to realize that there is a cost for setting up the book to print, so the smaller the press, the less likely they are to run ARCs.

Cool things to learn from ARCs are the number of copies for initial runs; marketing segments and publicity campaigns; social media blitzes; and sometimes the number of ARCs available for review. The ARC might include age group, lists of additional items not included in the ARC like maps and endpaper designs. Almost all include the range of formats (ebook, print, audio), launch date, and the price.

As a reviewer, it is great fun to read books as they are coming out, to read the hype in ads and promotions by the publishers, and then experience the book itself. Of course, reviewers end up with lots of books to populate their shelves and share with their friends. The only drawback, and it’s a small one, is you cannot sell ARCs which means lots of books that end up in Little Free Library boxes.

It turns out that ARCs are only about 70 years old. Before that, reviewers had to get their books already printed and ready for public consumption. Now I’m really curious about the rationale behind ARCs. Do you want to know more about ARCs? Here’s an article about ARCs and their beginnings.

https://lopezbooks.com/articles/about_uncorrected_proofs/