11 Books I Plan to Read in 2020

Happy New Year to all of my book-loving friends! My Goodreads Challenge of 36 books for the year has been set; and I've already begun my first read of 2020. Of all the books I will read this year, the following 11 will be among my reads.

What books are you purposefully setting out to read this year? 

Must Reads by the Close of 2019

If you're anything like me, there's either a stack of books next to your bed, on your bookshelf, living room floor, kitchen table, combination thereof, or all of the above that is demanding to be read. This year I've added more books to my TBR Goodreads Bookshelf than I've read, which of course is to be expected. However, there are a few books that I refuse to go into a new year, a new decade without having read or completed them.

Books to read or finish by the end of the year:

Update Alert

Hello reader friends! With only a little over two months before the end of the year, I wanted to pop in for a moment and share a brief update.

Five book reviews made it from unfinished draft to published since the beginning of the year. Even though the number is much lower than I'd like, it's much higher than last year's. Progress, slow and steady, but progress nonetheless.

Top Ten Reasons School Counselors Want Students to Read: Social-Emotional Learning Opportunities! by Sarah Scheerger

Reason #1639 of why I love the Nerdy Book Club...

Reposted from the Nerdy Book Club.

Top Ten Reasons School Counselors Want Students to Read: Social-Emotional Learning Opportunities! by Sarah Scheerger

• Cultivating Empathy

When we read, we climb into the minds and bodies of our characters. We feel with them and we feel for them. I explain empathy to students as follows: Empathy is the experience of walking in someone else’s shoes and imagining how you might feel if you were in a similar situation. This is different from sympathy, which is feeling sorry for someone else. Cultivating empathy is a way to combat bullying. Reading offers a way to understand another’s behavioral choices through first understanding the underlying feelings and thoughts that propel that behavior.

Books offer a “window,” a chance to peek into someone else’s reality and feel with and for them.

How Do You "See" the Books You Read by Emily Asher-Perrin

Reposted from Tor Publishing

For the most part, I have no issues visualizing the books I read. Though it's less like a movie and more of pictures/images actualizing the storyline before my eyes without need of additional equipment. My realized stories translate into life not played out over a screen, but real life. The life of those characters and their everyday reality. Whenever an image is murky or I stumble upon text I have problems computing to pictures, I reference other books or look up on the internet. 

What about you? 

How Do You "See the Books You Read by Emily Asher-Perrin

Wednesday, February 13, 2019

Inevitably, when someone is trying to advocate reading over watching things on screens, some variation of this old joke gets made: “Books are like movies inside your head!” This assumes everyone can—and does—create a full mental picture when they read, complete with sets, landscapes, costumed characters, and easy-to-follow action.

But that’s not how it works for me.

Dewey's 24-Hour Read-A-Thon Spring 2018

April was fast approaching and I knew a notice would be hitting my inbox any day. While I awaited the official notice, back and forth, back and forth, the pendulum swung as I decided whether or not to participate in read-a-thon this spring. My hand clutched the swaying pendulum stopping it on "no" in part stemming from the drastic change my life has undergone in the last four months. Adaping not just to motherhood, but motherhood of a sixteen, now seventeen-year old, having someone with me all of the time, being responsible for someone other than myself, changing job responsibilities, appointments, errands, and all of the running around has been a challenge. Keyword: balance. The balance I have yet to master.

Checking In

Hey guys and gals, it's been awhile and I've missed you all! Well, summer vacation has come and gone in my little corner of Georgia. By now, I thought I would be well over half past my reading goal of sixty books; however, I've just been toddling along. My fellow reading pals, might declare me in a midst of a reading slump, but it is not so. In a way, my summer reading has matched the Georgia weather—dry and hot. Most of my reading has been in spurts, like the five-minute rain showers that we've had all summer. These teasing bursts of precipitation turned up the humidity and the heat, but failed to drop enough water to quench the thirst of the parched ground, which is kind of how I've felt about my reading life this summer. I say hot because each of the six books I've read have impacted me, a few more than others, but each one made me think, remember, reflect, and feel. From one of my reads, I learned of an obscure folk artist whose work graces the Smithsonian Institute. In another, I annotated almost half of the book due to its relevancy to my present circumstances and the current social climate. And yet, another is nudging me toward more fantasy novels. So, that's the long and short of it or rather the hot and dry of it. :-)