Thoughts on a Reading Slump and Book Abandonment

For whatever reason, in the month of April my reading hit a slump. I read four books, one of them a reread (In Defense of Food by Michael Pollan- see my last post!). While this is impressive by my 2013 standards, it’s the least amount of books I’ve read in a month in 2014, and I completely ditched audiobooks. Here are some possible causes:

1. The weather has been unusually awful for April and the TV has been calling my name
2. I bought a road bike and have been dedicating some time to a new hobby
3. Grading and school has been getting the better of me

Most likely though, I think I’ve hit a wall because I haven’t been EXCITED about the books I’ve chosen to read. At the beginning of the year, I made a list of all the books I have been recommended or wanted to read and I have been steadily making my way through them. However, my most recent books have just not been making the cut. Here are some books I have abandoned  in recent weeks:

• The Group by Mary McCarthy: this is the book club choice from my college book club (hi guys!). I didn’t get too far into it when I heard many people were either a) not reading it or b) hating it, so I promptly decided not to make it a priority. The incredibly tiny font didn’t help either!

• Cooked by Michael Pollan: I love Michael Pollan and I love food, but I just wasn’t in the mood for this book. I’m much more interested in the process of growing food and eating food (thus, my recent Michael Pollan read), but over 500 pages of how cooking works just was not doing it for me.

• Endurance by Alfred Lansing: I actually do want to read this book still, reading about a ship crew trudging through snow and ice in Antarctica and it was snowing in April this year just made me angry! When I’m sweltering hot and baling hay in July, I think this book will be a much better fit.

• A Long Way Gone by Ishmael Beah: This memoir of Ishmael Beah, who was a boy soldier during the civil war of Sierra Leone, is extremely powerful and fascinating, and I would like to finish reading it. However, I had checked it out from the library as an audiobook. Although the narrator has a strong, calm voice, the contents of the book were so depressing that I hated listening to it in the car. I want to read this book, but I think this is better suited as a “read this and be depressed for one week,” not a “read in short spurts and be reminded how awful the world is all over again for weeks” selection.

So what’s a girl to do with all of this book abandonment and indecisiveness? I feel incredibly guilty when I abandon books, but as I’ve learned from Donalyn Miller, reader and teacher extraordinaire and author of my teaching bible The Book Whisperer, there are too many wonderful books in the world to read ones that don’t interest you. Reading should be fun, engaging, and an escape from your current world; the real world should not be an escape from books you are dreading to read.

So with that, I am picking myself up from April and setting out to salvage my reading in May. Luckily, I have wonderful friends who make my life so much better and have given me books and recommendations. Here are some books and ideas that are spurring me forward:

• What Teachers Make by Taylor Mali: Given to me by a dear childhood friend who also teaches, I have been reading a little of this each night and especially when teaching has been rough recently. A nice little reminder of why we teach.

• Reading in the Wild by Donalyn Miller: Another gift from a lovely colleague. As previously admitted, Donalyn Miller is my idol in a totally dorky reader and teacher sort of way. Can’t wait to get some ideas for next year from this book!

• Other things I have done: Without too much guilt, I cleaned out books from my list that I do not really want to read and have added in new recommendations after browsing my library website and GoodReads. Hopefully, six new books and two audiobooks will await me at the library soon! On May 22, I will also be attending a Young Adult Literature Conference with some of my buddies from school. Always a fantastic way to get the latest YAL titles and give me a huge summer booklist!

Spring is here and I can’t wait to share with you some of my newest book finds of May soon J