2011 was going to be my year for reading. I was going to reclaim my status as a reader. Now the year is half over. How am I doing?
Not so well, really.
I've completed 20 books; 9 were read-alouds in our homeschool. I guess those count, particularly books like The Odyssey and Chosen by God, which were just as valuable for me as they were for the kids.
I have two books listed as "in process" on my "2011 Reading" page. But that is really not quite true. I have a few books in process right now. I just can't settle on one, sit down, and read it through right now.
I wanted a fun adventure story so I picked up The Three Musketeers. Then I heard about Blackout - a novel involving time travel and World War II - so I started that for myself and as a preview for my 14-year-old. While browsing the library I came across Farthing, an alternate history wherein the Nazis prevail in World War II; I had just been talking about alternate history so that piqued my interest. I am still reading Bonhoeffer; it is very good but not always what one wants to read on a summer day in the hammock. Yesterday I started reading Herodotus' Histories for our summer school. (Yes, ancient history as summer reading. It's a good antidote to all the Tom Clancy and Royal Diaries my kids are inhaling right now.)
I've been managing just a few pages a night with my own personal reading. It's been a busy summer. That comment about the hammock? Wishful thinking!
Still, I think I am doing better than last year, though I didn't keep records then.
My kids are doing better than I am. As part of their homeschooling, I require them to log the books they read. Each child read about 50 this year; not all of it high quality, as noted above. Many times I have regretted not logging the books I read as a kid. Wouldn't it be fun to see what you were reading at 10, 15, 22? I don't think my kids see the value of logging their books yet. They do it because I make them. But I'll keep those logs and someday they will enjoy marveling over the books they read when they were teens.
Or, they'll recycle them with hardly a glance. Who can predict?
What are you reading this summer? Do you keep track of your books?
5 comments:
I think I might cringe if I could look back and see what I was reading as a teen. Silly magazines about celebrities, no doubt.
My husband and I have been talking about the books that we read as teens. It seems that we read an odd mix of classics and science fiction. We still like both of those genres (along with history) to this day.
Right now I am reading Fanny Crosby's autobiography. It is very enjoyable.
I am quite sure I read a lot of junk. There may even have been books I would have declined to log lest my mother see them. I had quite a bit of freedom at the public library...
Leslie, I think that would be a very good book for me to add to my list.
Isn't it, "So many books, too little time?" In recent years I've amped up my reading too. I only started this year to log what I've read (written down the last few years though). Just finished Have a Little Faith and The Five People You Meet in Heaven by Mitch Albom (son's summer reading). Beginning David Copperfield - I've never actually read any Dickens. Hope I make it through all 750+ pages!
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