#Microblog Monday 191: Book Pressure
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I have been tearing through books lately, somewhat due to our weekend read-a-thon. It also helped that the three books I read before the read-a-thon were on the shorter side. I didn’t love them, but it raised my self-esteem to see my “read” list growing longer, so I stuck with them. I sometimes make bad reading decisions like that just because I feel like crap when I feel as if my “read” list is short at the end of the year.
I don’t deal well with reading pressure; even self-imposed reading pressure.
I’d like to do a reading challenge, but I don’t think it would be motivating. I just think it would feel like work. Ditto for book clubs. I like the idea of a book club and socializing around a book, but it turns out that I really hate reading books that other people have told me to read, even when I intended to read them in the first place. Again, it feels like work, even though I love getting book recommendations (recommendations, yes, assignments, no). I have to read so much for actual work that I want my down time to be fun reading.
Do you like reading challenges and book clubs?
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| 1. | Mali (No Kidding) | 7. | Empty Arms, Broken Heart | 13. | Jess |
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17 comments
You’d have liked my bookclub. We pooled books, and then read what we felt like reading when we felt like it. Sometimes it would take a year for all of us to read the one book. Each meeting, the host would buy a couple of books to add to our collection. So there were always books we’d chosen ourselves, and there was never any pressure.
I set what I think are reachable targets for my reading challenges on Goodreads. I don’t need the pressure either!
Goodreads always tells me to set a goal, but I ignore it. Then, either I click the wrong thing, or they set it themselves according to previous years, and I log in and get a status update. I like getting a number at the end of the year, but I’m not invested in it. I don’t need pressure regarding something I do for fun. I have a couple online book clubs but my experience has been that people don’t necessarily want to talk about the book they were supposed to read.
LOL. I think the only time I took a reading challenge was when I was 12 or something. My older brother (a slow reader) asked if I could read Dickens A Take of TWo Cities in….a day? Maybe two. I did but I didn’t really like to rush it. I don’t like the idea of quotas (quality not quantity thanks) and I’ve never joined a book club. It could be fun I guess? I think at this point in my life I’d be a troublemaker though.
I don’t do reading challenges. I have no desire to.
I did like the one book club I was in with mom’s from our (first) baby parent class. But they slowly faded/moved away etc.and it disbanded when the kids were about 3. It was annoying when I would force myself to finish some long book in a genre I do not like and when one else had finished it…
I don’t like feeling pressure to read a certain book, especially within a certain time frame. That said, I’m enrolled in the Goodreads reading challenge (as Mali said, I try to set what I think will be a reachable target), and I would love to find a local book club to join. I’ve always enjoyed discussing books with others, when I was at school and in online forums, and while I don’t always like all the choices, I have been introduced to some great books & authors that I might not otherwise have picked up.
oh I agree. I hate pressure to read. It makes it no fun. I’m dealing with that now. My sunday school class is doing a book club, and I’m trying to get involved, but I can’t make myself read the book. Only one week left. We will see what happens
I love the sound of Mali’s book club. I got so frustrated being in a book club because I felt like I was wasting my limited free time to read books I didn’t love while my stack of books I wanted to dive in to just sat there. One of the reasons I quit.
I’m with you on reading challenges. Though I tear through books (I’m one of those who hates leaving things unfinished), the idea of a challenge makes me groan.
That said, I would love Mali’s bookclub. That would be an awesome experience.
I belong to a book club of eight wonderful women in my neighborhood and have done for over a year. It’s been a great opportunity to get to know these neighbors better, as well as to broaden my reading: we take turns choosing the book for the group to read each month, and at least half of the selections are books that I would likely not have chosen on my home. There have been a few duds, but overall, I have enjoyed the club’s selections.
Because I have been more active on Goodreads since joining this book club (we use it to figure out who has already read selections we might propose when it’s our month to choose the book and to get ideas), I have also participating in its yearly reading challenge the past two years. Last year I ended up increasing my goal midway through the year when I had already read 3/4 of my goal by the end of June, and I am already ahead of my goal for this year again.
I enjoy doing the reading challenge and the book club. Truth be told, I would still read without either of these things, but the books I choose might be different.
I’m with you – deadlines would just be too stressful. But the read-a-thon type of weekend sounds.. like heaven actually.
The only time I’ve participated in any kind of book club was when my husband and I decided to read the same book (mine in English, his in Hebrew) at the same time. It was supposed to become a thing, but we only finished one book. I started a second one but got so far ahead of him I had to stop (waiting for him to catch up, which never happened). I think the pressure of any other kind of book club would be too much pressure for me!
I am very rarely motivated by others’ deadlines. That applies to book clubs and reading lists. Also, while I’d love to meet more people, the thought of a reading assignment just takes the pleasure out of it. Props to those who do enjoy it, though!
So I actually did a book challenge in 2014 and I loved it but you’re right. It did dictate what I had to read. However, I found some books I like that I wouldn’t have thought of otherwise. And I’ve always wanted to be a part of a book club but I’ve never joined one.
One of our first blog posts is us commenting that book clubs seem like work. #2 on our blog tried a steampunk reading challenge and came to the conclusion that making a challenge of something fun takes away the fun. Which she should have known from the literature on intrinsic motivation.
Ah, I finally have a bookclub that I enjoy and have been a part of for YEARS now, because we meet every 2-3 months and actually discuss the book, and there have been not a lot of stinkers. It’s a group of people that all worked for Xerox at one time or another (other than me), and so it was novel to be the only teacher, the only one not in computers or finance. I hear you on the pressure with book challenges — every summer I like to read as many books as possible. I hit 31 two summers ago, and Bryce challenged me to hit 35. And then it just wasn’t fun anymore, and I felt stressed during my recharge time, and I found myself picking shorter books and forgoing books I wanted to read but that were too hefty and would take up precious reading days. Which is not really the point of reading for pleasure, right? So now I keep track but don’t necessarily set a goal. It’s great until it sucks the enjoyment of reading right out of you! I do like discussing books with other people though, especially because having different experiences going into a book makes reading the same book very different for different people.
I like the idea of reading challenges & book clubs, but they’re not for me. I take a good long time reading a book and enjoy doing so. In fact, I go through periods of time when I don’t even take anything out of the library because they only give you 2 weeks at a time & I have to keep trying to renew it over and over and over. Book clubs- I just can’t read that fast or often and I’m really bad at expanding my horizons on genres. If something was suggested that was a love story or something “heartfelt” or “poignant”, I’d be out. I did like when my daughter was in Battle of the Books at school because we could read books at the same time and discuss them.
I’m in an in-person adoption book club now, and I do like having 1 book to read in between meetings. Do I always get it read? No. But mostly I at least get it started. This weekend we are meeting about Little Fires Everywhere.