From blog hopping, I’ve noticed several references to a reading list or a reading plan. I have the impression that many book review bloggers – and, indeed, many readers – are more organised than I am with regard to planning their reading material.
Reading is the one area in my life where I allow myself complete freedom. I’m a planner by nature. Actually, if I didn’t have a ‘To Do’ list for each day, plus a regular routine, I would be in my PJs at 5 pm with the breakfast dishes still sitting on the table. I’m all-or-nothing in that sense.
When it comes to reading, I have a set time of day when I sit down with a book, but no plan as to what book it will be. I read according to my mood. I often go through phases of reading, say, several mysteries in a row, followed by several contemporary romances. Although I regularly post a list of books I’m looking forward to the next month, this doesn’t necessarily mean I’ll read all of them in that particular month. Much as I might be anticipating a certain book, if I’m not in the mood to read its particular genre, it will sit on my TBR shelf until I am.
I’m also peculiar when it comes to series books. I can’t read more than two books in a row which belong to the same series. I will often wait months between series books even if I’m really enjoying the story. At the very least, I’ll space them out by reading two or three other books in between.
I’m curious: What’s your reading style? Do you plan your reading schedule in advance, perhaps to coincide with a book’s release date? Or do you allow yourself to read whatever strikes your fancy?
{ 21 comments }
Because of my blog, I have a schedule of books to read, and for the most part I stick to it. If there is a new release by a fav author, I will definitely sneak it in. But I have my reading scheduled out through March..so yeah – not very spontaneous on my part:) But I have always been a planner and I love organization…and spreadsheets..and lists…:)
I’d say I do both. If there’s a highly anticipated book coming out, then yes, my reading schedule revolves around that book. It’s all about that instant gratification. But not every book generates that feeling in me. If I try to come up with a schedule, then I feel stressed out and I don’t enjoy reading. It’s not a competition. I don’t have to read every new release right away.
Other times, like when I OD on a certain genre, then I let my muse take me where it will. Sometimes to a historical or a category romance. I let my mood decide.
That’s part of the fun of reading for me. Having some idea of what I’ll read but also knowing I can change my mind and follow my mood
I am pretty haphazard in general, going in spurts with genres, but lately since I started reviewing at Booksquawk I feel the need to plan a bit. At least 2 books a month for that blog. I seems to add pressure for me though that I don’t think I like may have to stop planning.
@Mandi: See, I’m probably a bad book blogger in this sense. One of the reasons I’m reluctant to review too many ARCs is because I’d feel obliged to stick to a reading schedule in order to post my review to coincide with the book’s release date. I think I’d kill my reading mojo if I did that.
@Stacy ~: When it comes to a book I’m really looking forward to, I usually read it as soon as I get it. But if I’m not in the mood for a particular genre or subgenre, I save the book for later as I know I wouldn’t do justice to it if I tried to read it straight away.
I am a definite mood reader, I stand in front of the shelves and see what pulls at me. For the ocassional ARC reading I try to read a completely different genre before I start the ARC but other then that every book on the shelf is game. I also try to alternate genres/series/authors so that it doesn’t become a “same old, same old” experience for me.
I have a list of books I particularly want to read that I’ll cross off throughout the year as I finish them. If I have ARCs I try my best to give them top priority though. and I try to keep a running list of them to remind me of what needs doing. BUT, if an ARC isn’t grabbing me I try not to force it. I might try a different book then and go back to the ARC later. I guess you could say I’m more spontaneous of a reader. My mood plays a big part.
Also a mood reader. I’m always surprised at how many people will only read one kind of book… I read everything, not fussy on genres… just fussy on originality.
I also read whenever I get a moment. I don’t plan it into my day.
These days, my giant TBR makes me feel guilty so I don’t do a lot of rereads. Making the TBR worse, I often save books for a long time – even years – if they’re by a favorite author who doesn’t publish a lot. I have the most recent Molly Gloss, a couple by Sean Stewart, and the last in Sarah Monette’s Doctrine of Labyrinths series waiting for me, in that category.
I always have at least a couple, usually more, nonfiction books going along with whatever book is my current “insomnia read,” which usually takes a long time to finish (currently, the insomnia read is a reread of THE MADWOMAN IN THE ATTIC).
My mood has a lot to do with how I choose books from the TBR. I don’t often read series books one after the other any more, because I don’t want to feel overloaded by “last week, in this series….” I go for long periods reading nothing but historical romance, then will read several fantasy or sf/f YA, then a paranormal, then a mystery. Sometimes a subgenre shift is enough (historical romance to contemporary romance), and sometimes I feel like I have to shift genres. Sometimes I get stuck in a particular subgenre for a while. And sometimes I go all nonfiction, all the time, but never for very long. I seem to need stories.
I’m reading, back-to-back, Nora Roberts’ Chesapeake Bay series. I could say it’s because they’re library books, and if I don’t read them right away, they might linger in my TBR piles, gathering both dust and overdue fines. But really, it’s because her books link together pretty well — they’re interesting, I read them very fast (for a couple reasons!), and I want to know what happens to this family — that I can read then consecutively. And thus get them back to the library on time!
After that, well it’s a bit like how I watch TV (all of which is recorded and thus in a TBW queue): the shows I love get watched first, and everything else is done in a complicated pattern of mixing genres (e.g., police procedurals, scripted dramas, and creepy/grim shows) and saving the “least-loved” for last. With books, this means I’m mixing historical series (Balogh’s Simply books and Beverley’s Rogues) with contemporaries and some paranormals. At some point I’ll have to read those Not My Usual Genre Books I promised here I’d read in 2010, but when I’m in a romance groove, it’s hard to leave it.
With me it’s also a combination of both! I am almost (maybe not almost) OCD with planning and lists. I make lists of EVERYTHING. With reading I was always a mood reader, read what I was in the mood for. Soon I discovered that I must sometimes purposely change genres to keep it fresh and not get overdosed on a particular genre (had this happen with paranormal and historical on occasion). Since I started reviewing for ROOB it became a bit less of a mood reading thing as some books have to be reviewed before a certain date and now with ARC and request for the blog it’s the same thing. So I try to plan the books, alternating genres and trying to sneak in some spur of the moment, in the mood, reads. The spur of the moment reads are mostly highly anticipated new releases from favorite ongoing series and favorite authors. And also some books that have been on the shelves for like an eternity without me even touching them…
In answering your question I do realize that with the reading challenges I’ve taken up the list making and planned reads are in full effect more than ever in 2010…
No planned reading list here – and I wish I could have a set reading time. I tend to read when I’ve a spare moment, usually at night.
But if I find a series I really really like, I pretty much read the whole series in one go. IIRC, I read Elizabeth Peters’ Amelia Peabody books within a couple of months, and we’re talking about 18 books here.
Gosh – I’ve just read Pearl’s comment, and have realised this is why I’m useless when it comes to reading challenges, I don’t plan!
A lightbulb moment
I love lists. And calendars with deadlines and notes and stuff. I think I would go crazier without a list of things to do…
And it sort of impacts my reading–things like beta reading can’t be put off until I feel like it, for example, and when you have a hundred or so books in your “to review” list…–but generally speaking I will read what I’m in the mood to read, because forcing myself to forge ahead with a story that’s leaving me cold is just counter productive:
If it’s for a review, it’s a disservice to the story itself and to the author, because I won’t enjoy the book no matter what (sort of ‘on principle’ thing)
If it’s for pleasure… well, there’s no pleasure in forcing myself to do anything.
There is no method to my madness I’ll read anything that strikes my fancy. Books I get to review I read as I get them, if I feel overwhelmed I’ll stop accepting reviews. I’m also an ebook junkie *damn you Amazon with the 1 click buy* I usually read a book a day, which then leads to burn out.
I’m a totally disorganized reader. I don’t read at a particular time, in a particular place, or on a particular schedule. I don’t know what I’m going to read – I read by mood.
What I am weird about, though, is finishing. I won’t start a new fiction book until I’ve finished one – I’m a serial reader for fiction. Non-fiction, on the other hand, I can read several at a time. Weird.
I have noticed a lot of “Reading Challenges” popping up over Romlandia for the new year, and though I know I’d qualify for about a dozen of them, I only joined one.
I don’t know that I could take the pressure of having all of my reading decisions made for me by the beginning of the year. I read by the seat of my pants. Before I pick up a book I think about what I feel like reading, and then search through my TBR for something to fit that desire.
I can’t imagine laying out my reading for the month and then just following the list. That sounds too much like work
I’m definitely a mood reader. I know it makes me a bad blogger, but I don’t worry about reading a book just because it was received for review. I’m either interested in reading it or I’m not;I don’t force it.
As for series books – I go in spurts. 2 years ago I spent months doing nothing but re-reads of the In Death series. One right after the other, over and over again. And because there were 20-something available (at that time) I wasn’t bored with them, even if I was re-reading the same book for the 2nd time in a month.
Other series I wait, or forget about, or lose interest in, or…well, there are a host of things. Nalini Singh’s Psy-Changeling series comes to mind. I haven’t read the last 3 or 4 releases, though I plan to come back to it at some point.
I’m just all over the place. No rhyme or reason.
To (mis)quote DNA: “I love deadlines. I like the whooshing sound they make as they fly by”
So, definitely no planned reading for me (other than Lord Perfect, that is). I’ll pick up whatever strikes my fancy, or whatever Amazon thinks I might like, always on the lookout for the next Tolkien (thought it might be GRRM, but A Dance with Dragons is turning out to be an epic fail) or the next Simmons (and by this I do not mean the next Simmons book, but the next book by Simmons or someone else which comes close to Hyperion)
What a fun, hopping blog post! Since I’m not a reviewer and am purely a reader, I’m eclectic, haphazard, go-with-the-mood kind of person. I do have a list of when books I’m watching out for are releasing, so I know what I need to buy when, and if it’s something I’m dying to read, then I get to it the minute it walks through the door. Otherwise, when new books arrive, they get put on the TBR shelf and every time I want a new book, I go meditate on the shelf and choose one that jumps out and call my name.
I think I’ve always loosely organized my reading. I try to mix it up as much as possible–read a romance, read a mystery, etc. That being said, if I’m really excited about book, I’ll read it right away.
I pick up whatever I feel like reading. But if I read one genre for too long, I’ll force myself into another direction so I don’t burn out.