Tagged: Reading
Discussion: Your School Reading Experiences
Since I’m a huge book nerd, I’m assuming that most people reading my blog are book nerds of varying degrees. So I thought we could all share how our love of reading developed and was either discouraged or encouraged during school. Here’s my story:
In grade one and two there was quite an excellent reading program at my school consisting of 26 levels you had to finish at the end of the second grade. Well, the problem was that I mastered the books in each level too quickly but the teachers would not move me up the levels until I read every single book in them (although I was reading aloud fluently and had excellent reading comprehension). Despite their efforts to hold me back, I was finished a month before school ended and my mother’s bitter fight with the school to get them to give me level-appropriate reading material began.
Middle school was an extremely boring joke. By the time we were doing novel studies in grades 7, 8 and 9 I had already read all of the ones in the curriculum back in grade five and six. My English teacher at this time was awesome and by grade nine she got tired of me spoiling the entire plots (I’ll admit I was a bit of a smartass and being bored/frustrated didn’t help). So when I said yet again that I had already read the book we were about to study, she handed me an independent novel study booklet and let me use a book of my choosing. I think I chose I, Claudius by Robert Graves and loved it. Much better than the other option, which was reading a book I had read way back in the third grade (and could still summarize six years later).
So you could say school didn’t exactly encourage my love of reading, but thank goodness my parents did. We didn’t always have money for things like new movies or toys but there was always money for books and for that I’ll always be grateful. Without their support, I wouldn’t be writing this blog and my life would be a whole lot more boring and empty without it.
Well, now that you’ve heard my life story, I want to hear yours! How did your school experiences affect your reading now? Were they good or bad experiences?
Discussion: Your Reading Influences
Yes, it’s the second discussion in a row this week! I had a brainwave the other night while thinking up a post and decided that this was actually the perfect topic for a bonus discussion.
A lot of people influenced my love of reading but the main credit would have to go to my parents, who read to me every day before I began going to school. Even after I started going to school, my mother would still read me bedtime stories up until grade three. By then I just enjoyed listening to her read rather than actually needing her to read to me. Even though the school reading program and the teachers did their best to suck all of the joy of reading out of me, I persevered and became the avid reader I am today.
Most of you reading this blog are readers of varying degrees. So what I want to know now is this: Who influenced your love of reading the most? Was school a positive influence on your reading or a negative influence, as it was on mine?
Reader Request Week #1: Finding Time to Read and Review
Megan S. of Life’s Unfiltered Ramblings submitted this question for my first reader request week:
Hey Carrie, my question to you is how you are able to not only read and review as many books as you do, but how you obtain all your books and ebooks. Do you have a partnership with someone? Do you get free copies from the authors? Also, how do you find the time? Do you have another job that may get in the way?
I have a full-time job and find it hard to accomplish all that I want with my blog, and seeing yours so successful has had me reevaluate my time and break down everything to reach my goals. Thanks for the inspiration and support you’ve provided me in the past.
There are a lot of pretty good questions in here so I’ll do my best to address them all in two parts.
Part #1: Finding books.
Well, the answer is dependent on when you’re talking about in the history of my blog. Prior to starting a book reviewing blog I actually had quite a fair collection of books, which made up something around 200 of my first reviews. But what happened when those were exhausted? Well obviously I continued buying books but I also tapped other sources for books: authors and publishers.
Authors and publishers are a great source of free books and all you have to do in return is provide an honest review. When I had my review requests open I got several free books this way, but after I closed my requests I joined NetGalley. NetGalley is an online book catalog that’s perfect for bloggers like me to have a somewhat sustainable book habit because all you do for a free book is give it an honest review (if you’re approved). I also request specific titles from authors and publishers (mainly authors) through email. To someone not in the book blogging community you’d be surprised at how willing people are to give things away for free at the promise of an honest review.
Basically most of my books now come from either NetGalley or publishers/authors that I request books from personally.
Part #2: Finding Time.
(Just so we’re clear: I don’t work full time in the winter because our little tourist town decreases in population by at least 50%. Working in a lumber yard/hardware store/building company does have its downsides. But since we’re talking about blogging while holding a full time job I’ll talk about how I manage things for the other half of the year.)
The question I encounter frequently on the blogosphere is how do bloggers find time to blog? Well, the answer is simple: The 168 Principle.
The 168 Principle was taught to me by a very wise man and it basically goes like this: there are 168 hours in a week. Ideally you spend about 56 of those sleeping, leaving you with 112 hours. In the peak season I work about 48 hours a week (6 days a week, 8 hours a day). That’s a fair bit but that still leaves me with 64 hours to do whatever I want. You can get a lot done in 64 hours a week, believe me.
Not all of those spare 64 hours are devoted to reading or blogging but the main idea behind this principle is that if you want to find time for something, you can. If you want to blog, blog. If you want to read, read. It’s all a matter of scheduling. Almost everyone can find a spare hour every day to set aside for themselves if they really try. For example, if you’re a writer there are plenty of writers that find they have no time to themselves during normal hours so they write late at night or get up extra early to write. The same thing goes for bloggers. If I know my week is going to be tight scheduling-wise, then I just stay up a little later and read.
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If this post raises a new question or you have another topic you’d like to see me cover for the 2014 Reader Request Week, head on over to this post and comment!
My question for you guys is: How do you manage your time? Are some times of the year busier for you than others? If you’re a book blogger, where do you get the majority of your books from?
I Finished The Mad Reviewer Reading & Reviewing Challenge
I started my own challenge way back in 2013 so it’d be a darn shame not to finish it. I actually read and reviewed 191 books in 2013 but I counted the longer novels toward my challenge. Anyone who doubts whether I actually reviewed these books can go verify them on the ‘My Reviews‘ page. Right now I’m just going to talk about my statistics from the reading challenge (in which I read 104 books).
Total pages read: 43,985
Average pages per book: 422.9
Time spent reading (assuming an average of 100 pages/hour): 436.85 hours
Time spent reviewing (assuming 45 minutes/review): 78 hours
Um, wow? I had no idea I spent that much time reading, but I guess I really do spend a lot of my time with my nose in a book. More than most people, I’m thinking. Even with blogging, I had no idea I spent that much time actually writing reviews! But by the time I find cover pictures, blurbs and actually write the darn things an average of 45 minutes has gone by. That means that since I reviewed 191 books this year I spent 143 hours and 15 minutes writing reviews. I earned my blog name, that’s for sure.
Discussion: Are You an Introvert?
Most of the people reading my blog are pretty well-read, be it fiction or nonfiction. What I’ve noticed over the years is that most people who are big readers are introverts. This could be for a number of reasons I don’t feel qualified to talk about, so I’m going to talk about my own introvert experiences.
I’m not the necessarily shy and socially awkward type of introvert that movies and television seem to portray. I’ve learned to fake it because it’s not possible to behave like an introvert in my line of work. I do enjoy the occasional night out, but stuff like that exhausts me. Four or five hours out is pretty much my limit and that’s on a good day. On an average day I can’t tolerate much more than two hours. (This is on top of a full day’s work, mind you.)
So most Friday nights you’ll find me sitting at home watching TV or reading. It’s not because I don’t have friends/a social life but rather because for the most part I prefer my own company. Social stuff drains me and frankly I find most people to be boring and/or annoying. (This is likely the side effect of living in a tiny community where I’ve known everywhere for my whole life. Outside of my own community I do love talking to people and hearing their stories.)
Because I don’t really like to go out, I read a lot. At the same time, I make time for reading because I really do enjoy it. Is there a correlation between being bookish and introverted? My anecdata says yes, but I’d like an admittedly slightly biased survey here on my blog.
What I want to know is this: Are you an introvert? Can you describe your experience(s) as an introvert for any readers here who are extroverts? If you are an introvert, do you find that you read more than your extroverted friends/colleagues/family?