This is a misleading blog post. I still do read, and I read more than your average person. Perhaps 70 books a year. I log the books on Goodreads (shameless plug–feel free to add me!). But before I started writing seriously, I was reading 150 books or more per year. Every other day, practically, I’d finish a book, reading at least 110 pages per day. I’m amazed that I was able to keep up that pace for so long.
Now, between writing and having one of those adult full-time jobs, reading is very much pushed to the background. A lot more time is spent reading online articles through my Google Reader. I still read a little fiction every day, but due to a myriad of worries and obligations, it’s been a very long time since I lost myself in a book for a full afternoon. And I miss it. Desperately. I think when the next one of those readathons come along, I’m going to choose a book I think I’ll lose myself in and schedule the day just for that.
What I choose to read has also changed. I do more beta-reading or reading books friends have published. Which is wonderful–I’m more than happy to do this, and I particularly enjoy seeing books in their embryonic stage and offering my own suggestions. I read books that are in a similar vein to my books, so I am aware of who my closest peers in the publishing industry are. It’s very rare that I re-read a book, unless it’s one of my all-time favourites. Before, I’d read unself-consciously–a Raymond Chandler followed by a young adult novel about mermaids, followed by a memoir of a Russian Cosmonaut in space. Didn’t matter. I’d read anything and read it quickly.
Now it feels as through my To Be Read pile is still growing exponentially, but I’m falling further behind. The old adage of “so many books, so little time” is so unbelievably true.
Perhaps it’s just a slump and I’ll go back to my voracious reading habits, though I doubt I’ll ever read 150 books in a year again.
How have your reading habits changed? Do you read more or less than you used to?
Before I had my child, my biggest fear was that I would not have enough time to read. I remember the time in my 4th year of undergrad, when I was so stressed and so busy with thesis that I did not read for pleasure at all, which, of course, drove me even more crazy. So I vowed that I would never let that happen again. Even in grad school, I tried to read something.
I don’t really have much time to read with the baby, but I try to do it as much as I can — when I’m feeding her, when she is taking a bath with my husband, etc. Otherwise I would go completely crazy, reading for pleasure is something that keeps me more or less sane.