Two things last week got me thinking about my reading habits — the Friday BBAW question and a post by Eva at A Striped Armchair. BBAW asked about your blogging goals for the coming year and Eva was talking about reading on a whim.
I consider myself a whim reader and by that I mean I pick what I want to read based on what I feel like reading not on a structured plan. Even when I’m participating in challenges I manage to find a way to ignore any sort of plan I’ve put in place and pick my next book randomly. The last few days I’ve been thinking about why I do this and I can come up with no reason for it. Normally, I’m a very organized person who loves to make lists and have everything in a certain order, and while I do make reading lists, I don’t have any prescribed way of reading the books on the list. Even when it’s a book I’ve been wanting to read, I sometimes leave it until I’m feeling it more.
Here’s the good thing in all of this; I think this is what keep reading fun for me. I’m always looking forward to something new and not knowing what that is, makes it fun. Hardly do I ever think about the next book I’m going to be reading while reading, unless of course the book is bad, scary, or sad in which case I might make an effort to be sure the next pick is something more uplifting, but other than that, I don’t go out of my way to think about it.
On the right sidebar, I have a widget for the next book on my TBR and I realized earlier this week that it’s pretty much useless to me. You see, I pick those books at random from a pile sitting on the little table next to the desk. In some cases, the books I have there never get read. It was just a book on the pile and for that moment looked interesting. Sometimes I do read the books but sometimes I don’t.
In some ways, I have similar feelings about my blog. I love doing this and BBAW gave me a humongous list of new blogs to visit, but I randomly take days off and don’t feel guilty about it in anyway. My goals were, and remain, pretty simple — just to talk about my book reading. I’m trying to keep it that way and I know it will stay fun.
So, the wrap-up. Last week, I read:
Dracula in Love by Karen Essex.
Packing for Mars: The Curious Science of Life in the Void by Mary Roach
The Last Kingdom by Bernard Cornwell
Dracula in Love was meh, Packing for Mars was fascinating and gross, and The Last Kingdom I’ll be finishing up today and it confirmed my love of everything Cornwell writes.
That’s it for today folks. Enjoy your Sunday.
Just Book Reading 
I’m a whim reader as well. I am attempting to read all the 1001 Children’s Books You Must Read, so I am a whim reader within a structure, I suppose.
I’ve only read children’s books this week, but what wonderful children’s books they were! I’d love to have you stop in at my blog:
http://www.readerbuzz.blogspot.com
(And don’t panic….the post IS in English, despite all outward appearances!)
I have become so much better at choosing my books on a whim. A big reason is that I rarely get ARCs anymore. The only pressure I feel is with my library books and trying to read them before they are due back!
I’m a very whim-driven reader, but I also try to read deliberately sometimes, to make an effort to pick up a few books each week that are outside of my comfort zone in some way. Even if I don’t always read them, and instead reread books from my childhood, I like having them around for if I find myself feeling brave. 🙂
As long as it’s fun, you know? I tend to divvy up my reading by five books at a time–while they’ll be random picks of differing genres, sometimes I’ll organize what I’m going to read next by what’s on my desk.