I’m a self-professed social media junkie, but this is one app I truly can’t live without.
The last few years I’ve not been a reader.
Sure, I’ve read blog posts a plenty (many of them my own, which always need massive
amounts of editing.)
I’ve read magazine entries, my kids’ hilarious school projects (a recent one from my son announced “I want to create a Minecraft game and live in a ditch.” Go parenting skills!)
My last book–incredible food for my brain.
This is a recent read that literally brought me to tears AND made me consider my own life in a very different way.
Rarely, though, have I taken the time to read an entire book–at least not as much time as I think I should be spending at age thirty-nine. I’m not talking about a book for business, like Enchantment, which is sitting on my desk at work and has it’s pages bent on occasion, but actually reading a book for pleasure.
Yes, unadulterated reading of text for the sole purpose of sinking into another world while sitting on one’s couch. I have made a hundred excuses (no time with three kids, working, blah blah) but I finally made the realization that my brain was shriveling away at a rapid pace and I was missing out on a wonderful world that I used to know.
At the advice of a great friend, I checked out the app Goodreads to help me connect with my Facebook and other online friends using the app. Here, I’ve learned to surf the status updates to find out who is reading what and why they loved or hated each book.
It’s been fun to not only see what my friends enjoy reading but the why of it all–I don’t like books that have this much detail, the characters weren’t developed, it was cheap and tawdry (sign me up!)–you name it. I’ve also switched from actual books in most cases to using my iPad to read, and much to my surprise I’m finding that I love it. The bonus feature is not having step one foot outside of where you are and downloading any book at the touch of your fingertips (thanks, iBooks and Paypal!)
This same friend–we’ve been close for over twenty years since we were college roomies–was my poolside partner on a recent long weekend. We lay in beach chairs, side-by-side, reading and stopping to talk about our books, our lives, and more books we need to read. I devoured two entire books. It was heaven.
So, at the age of thirty-nine I’m learning to read again. It’s tough to carve out the time but I’m determined to do it because it’s making me so very happy. I hope that you can, too.
