@abasket a lot of my “reading” is audiobooks. I walk my dog 3 miles almost every day, and also walk my neighbor’s dog a mile about 4-5x per week. I listen to books to pass the time. We also go on a lot of roadtrips in the fall (older son plays a college sport), so if I’m driving, I put in an earphone and listen to a book.
I still read a lot, but I don’t work FT. I didn’t read nearly as much when I was working, nor when my kids were younger. I’m also a homebody/introvert and reading is one of my favorite things to do.
I meant to add into my post that maybe some of you also do audiobooks. I’m listening to podcasts in my driving or walking time! It’s all good. :). I do work full time so if I carve out 20 mins to 1/2 hour of reading a day with work and my other activities, I’m cool with it.
Non-social aspect Goodreads user here. I will sometimes look to see what friends are reading, but we never converse there. I read about 100 books a year. Finishing up number 105, The Bullet that Missed, today. The majority are audiobooks and probably 90% are from the library. Goodreads has been invaluable in helping me keep from starting books I already read. I listen in the car and while doing laundry, cleaning, gardening, dog walking, etc.
A few faves this year……
-Have you seen Luis Valez?
-Three Girls from Bronzeville
-By Her Own Design
-I Must Betray You
-The Forest of Vanishing Stars
-The Magnificent Lives of Marjorie Post
-Being Mortal: Medicine and What Happens in the End
Overdrive says I checked out 438 books this year. There are probably 30? 50? duplicates and DNFs, 10-15 magazines and cookbooks included. Another 25-50 physical books checked out & read and 25+ purchased or gifted, but not yet read.
I read very quickly, always have, which makes it easier. There are very few literary fiction books on my list because it just doesn’t interest me. Most of what I read is genre fiction; my reading is for pleasure.
A few I enjoyed this year:
A Marvelous Light (Marske)
Killers of a Certain Age (Raybourne)
The Cartographers
Book Lovers (Henry)
Thank You for Listening (Whelan)
The Deepest of Secrets (Armstrong)
The Very Secret Society of Irregular Witches (Mandanna)
Stanley Tucci memoir + cookbook
Mudlark (Maiklem, NF)
Others by Ann Cleeves, Elly Griffiths, Jenn Burke, Eliz Strout…
Oh, gosh, you never are required to do reviews.
“Back when”, I kept up with my books on “Shelfari” which got bought by Goodreads which is now owned by Amazon.
Favorites were SO good, though, and rank among some of the best books I’ve read in the last five years for sure.
Five stars from me:
Now Is Not the Time to Panic - Wilson
Groundskeeping - Cole
The Crane Wife - Hauser
Tomorrow and Tomorrow and Tomorrow - Zevin
Lucy by the Sea - Strout
Either/Or - Batuman
Last Summer on State Street - Wolfe
The Marriage Plot - O’Farrell
I wouldn’t mind having your books pop up in my feed as we have very similar tastes. I don’t think I’ve ever posted anything more than “I loved that too,” for the few friends I have on Goodreads.
I started posting on Goodreads in 2019 after a hiatus of 11 years. I think I stopped when the reviewing process got decoupled from Facebook. I always kept book lists when I was younger and I missed having a record. I always post a review because I like being reminded of what I thought and never know how to rate a book I really enjoyed despite it being kind of schlocky versus one that was also beautifully written. I give out a lot of 4s! I like the Read Challenge aspect. I read 26 books the first year I came back, 50 the next. Most people I know who reads tons of books reads a lot via audio. I am not an auditory learner at all and have only managed to be able to read a handful of books that way without going hunting for a book version.
Favorite books this year:
A Rake of his Own by AJ Lancaster - the fifth book following a quartet. More explicit sex than the earlier books. Fantasy set in Edwardian-ish England.
The Expanse books by James S.A. Corey. Sci fi. Nine books plus several novellas. All are good, some are great. Love the characters and the world-building.
The Good Wife of Bath by Karen Brooks. Historical Fiction inspired by Chaucer.
Lessons in Chemistry by Bonnie Garmus. Fun and thought provoking.
Indelible City - Dispossion and Defiance in Hong Kong by Louisa Lim. Part memoir, part history. One of the few non-fiction books I read this year.
Frankenstein, or the Modern Prometheus by Mary Shelley. Finally actually read this classic. There’s a lot more to it than the movies and she was 21 when it was published!
L’Anomalie by Hervé Le Tellier. Part thriller, part sci-fi. I even read it in French!
Jade Legacy by Fonda Lee. Very satisfying end to a trilogy. Kind of like The Sopranos in Hong Kong with magic.
I can’t do audio books. Or at least choose not to. I wouldn’t call it a learning style, but I don’t read at one pace. I stop, go back, go forward, slow down, check something from another page, etc. A river of story just going along would be frustrating to me.
@Garland, I read exactly like you do: stop, go back, go forward, slow down, check something from another page, etc.
I sometimes listen to an audiobook as I read if another language crops up in it. I just finished a book that dropped in some Spanish, Yiddish, Hebrew, and Czech. I like hearing the correct pronunciation rather than just skimming over it.
I’m so glad to read others can’t do audiobooks. I thought I was the only one. I can’t focus more than a minute or two before my mind wanders. I can’t even listen to song lyrics.
I gave audiobooks a try when I was driving my son’s carpool 45-60 mins to school each way. I too am a visual learner so it took some time for me to adjust, but I realized that certain genres are much easier for me to listen to. Memoirs are one genre I’ve found that are usually easy to listen to. Long books, complicated plots, lots of characters or literary novels with beautiful, quotable passages I prefer to read versus listen.
I am very choosy about audiobooks but I realize that they are not for everyone. For me, they made the carpool commute bearable and now I enjoy them while dog walking. And when I find an excellent narrator, I will look for other books narrated by the same person/people. Some books are really made enjoyable by the narration, like I know I would not have liked as much as a hard copy book (Daisy Jones and the Six is one such book - excellent ensemble of narrators!).
I listen to a ton of podcasts while running and walking. But for a cross country road trip I did try audible. It worked pretty well for a book club title I needed to read. But I also liked the short memoir recordings of James Taylor and Yo Yo Ma.
I am not generally an audiobook lover myself. I can read much faster than they narrate the books so find it frustrating. The only times I enjoy them are:
On road trips (including when I had a long drive to work every day).
When D was too young to really read the Harry Potter (when the early books int the series came out) I got the cassettes (dating us LOL) with Jim Dale reading the books. He was fantastic (I’m a big fan of his from Broadway shows) and she followed the books along with his narration.
Love Jim Dale reading the Harry Potter books! I bought the tapes too for our road trip vacations. The kids would beg to keep driving and never got antsy…eternally grateful for the memories.
I listen in the car and while doing laundry, cleaning, gardening, dog walking, etc.