Hello from my sofa in Brooklyn where I have been hermit-ing away all weekend, recovering from BEA! It was a wonderful week though, and I will be posting a full recap of the event, the great books I acquired, and the wonderful bloggers I got to meet and spend time with.
Friday night Graham and I treated ourselves to Shake Shack, which tasted incredible after eating so much Javits center food and bagged snacks. Saturday I picked up library holds (yes, more books) and then read all day. Today I got to have brunch with a lovely friend that I hadn’t seen in far too long.
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This week I posted the second part of my Peru travelogue (catch up on part 1 here), and shared thoughts on “putdownable books” which was also an informal review of A God in Ruins by Kate Atkinson. This week’s Words to Live By post featured the late great Douglas Adams.
READING
I now have a giant stack of galleys from BEA, and it’s a bit intimidating. But I made a list of them all by release date, and now it feels more manageable. I’m also going to go through the stack of titles I’m uncertain about and evaluate if I want to commit to them or not – I may end up doing a galley giveaway here soon for the ones that aren’t my cup of tea.
This week during my little amount of BEA downtime I was reading a very “putdownable” book – a travel book that’s a bit vintage: But I Wouldn’t Have Missed it for the World! by Peg Bracken. I was not very into it, and on Saturday was faced with the prospect of trying to finish it this weekend to count it as a May read. I had no desire to. So I put it down and instead picked up Dietland by Sarai Walker, a book I received at BEA that I’ve heard amazing things about. I loved it and read the whole thing in under 24 hours. The experience made me realize that maybe I should be a bit more willing to give up on books and write them off for a loss, instead of trying to slog through them. It wastes time I could spend reading something great. I’m not going to finish the Peg Bracken book, and will try to be more conscious about this in the future, and become more willing to put aside things I’m not into.
WATCHING
Graham and I watched all 8 episodes of Family Tree, an 2013 HBO comedy series starring Chris O’Dowd. It’s a bit tragic that HBO didn’t renew it for a second season. The first season does leave some unanswered questions, but I think it’s still worth watching. It’s very funny, with endearing characters. Is it too late for Hulu to save this one as well?
LISTENING
I just finished the audiobook of 10% Happier by Dan Harris. I have many thoughts about it and will be posting a full review of it this week.
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So that’s the crazy, BEA-filled week! How are you, readers? What did I miss this week?
Most importantly, it was SO fun to meet you this week at BEA! Glad we got to spend so much time together given the size of the show. Also: I’m a chronic book abandon-er (that’s a thing, right?). I often put things down when I just feel the mood or time isn’t right and revisit, though when I find myself entirely uninterested in revisiting, I just leave a book unfinished. There are too many amazing things to read.
And I’ve been hearing so many good things about Dietland.
Yes yes and yes! It was so fun to meet you too, and very glad we actually got to hang out & chat!
I like your strategy of putting something down until the mood or time is right – it has a nice openness to it: if it’s meant to be, you can pick it back up. If you just keep staring at it and never want to pick it up, it’s probably good to cut losses. I’ve done that in the past with very long books, when the time commitment to finish seems very long. But I’m embracing doing that with shorter/regular length books as well. And I do like Nancy Pearl’s rule – read until (100 – your age) page number, if you’re not hooked, feel free to stop reading. That’s 70 pages for me, which is a pretty good benchmark. (Though perhaps too long for some books.)
So glad to hear Dietland was a win for you! One of my big goals for this year was to be willing to put down more books. I started out great, but have slipped back a bit…need to get back on track! It definitely makes for happier reading.
That’s a great goal, I’m trying to embrace it myself as well. I’m realizing that it not only makes for happier reading, but also MORE reading. I read the 307 pages of Dietland in less than 24 hours. It would have taken me 2 to 3 more days to slog through the other one – I kept putting it down to do other things.
Also – thanks for your great review of Dietland! It was one of the main reasons I grabbed it at BEA. The title/cover was something I wouldn’t normally have picked up, but it was so great!
I love Peg Bracken but the title you mentioned doesnt show her in peak form. Try “I Didn’t Come Here to Argue,” her book of essays, if you can find it. Or her classic “The I-hate-to-cook book.”
It can be SUCH a struggle to put down a book, especially if it’s sort of “middling” (i.e., you aren’t absolutely bored/wanting to chuck it at the wall), and I’m trying to get better at it, too. I’m not sure where the urge to slog through comes from—are we really all that big of perfectionists? I guess I could believe it. ;)
I’m so glad your BEA experience was excellent and that you’ve gotten a chance to recuperate!
And, finally, Shake Shack. Drooooool.