How Do I Decide What to Read?
Someone recently asked me how I decide what to read next. In recent years, my personal reading time has been largely dominated by pre-reading things for the kids, such as historical fiction and non-fiction related to upcoming history studies and middle-grade fiction for their pleasure reading. I've also always had a stack of to-be-read books that have been donated to our church's homeschool library or books I've picked up at the library book sale. In addition, I pick up ideas from book reviews from various sources: friends, magazines, blog, podcasts, and other online sources. Sometimes while searching for one book or topic online (library catalog or book buying site), I run across other titles that the search engine brings up and I follow that rabbit trail of interest. In this past year, I haven't had as many school-related books to pre-read, so I've been able to enjoy "reading at whim" more -- just picking up something that grabs my fancy, and following any rabbit trails that lead from there. For example, a niece mentioned the Christy Miller Series, so I started reading those and then went on to read many more books by the same author. Again, I found a book about Mr. Darcy on the library book sale shelf and followed up with reading everything by that author, plus the original Pride and Prejudice, plus some other spin-offs. At the same time, I heard Sarah Mackenzie from Read Aloud Revival mention a new novel set in the Regency period. After I read that, I read a review of it that mentioned another prolific author of Regency stories and started reading some of her books. Wanting to understand the time period better, I looked up several books that gave some background to that historical era. I have thoroughly enjoyed that rabbit trail. I keep a list of books I hear about that intrigue me so that I don't forget. Sometimes I actually get around to reading some of those books. Sometimes I don't. Sometimes I go back and look at the list and wonder what was so intriguing about a certain title. That's ok. My wish list is my tool, not my master. If you've been reading this blog for a while, you may have noticed that this year I started dividing my books into "personal reading" (which features a mix of novels, non-fiction, devotional, and audio) and other reading (stuff for the kids). It has been a great blessing to make sure I take time to feed my own mind and soul as well as the minds and souls of my children.
Personal Reading
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