Weekend reads and yucky times...


It's a stunning February day, but I'm home sick and feeling blue. I don't know if it's something in the stars, but houses and homes are causing me a great deal of stress, both our new home and our old rental. Expensive stresses, too.

I'm self medicating with flowers and oranges and planning to some reading over lunch. I'm finishing up Heidi Heilig's The Girl From Everywhere, which has me captivated, and am starting Susan Wittig Albert's Loving Eleanor, a historical novel about Eleanor Roosevelt's romance with AP reporter Lorena Hickok. Yummy!

Amazingly, today's theme for Book Blogger Appreciation Week (BBAW) is Blogger Burnout -- something I'm becoming all too familiar with!

I remember when I first started blogging in 2010, I couldn't imagine anyone getting burned out. Free books! Reading! Writing! Swapping enthusiasm with others!

It's caught up with me now, and not in the ways I imagined. I've got the luxury of saying the free books are tiresome -- though free, they come with a different kind of price -- and the relentless tension of promotional machine versus personal space for introspection has tripped me up frequently. I feel like I'm doing neither right and I wonder if I'm loving my reading despite doing so much of it. (My malingering top ten of 2015 is slow to come, in part, because I'm struggling to assemble 10 reads that electrified me to my roots!)

How do you deal with possible burnout? And what are you reading this weekend?

Comments

  1. bermudaonionFebruary 19, 2016 at 12:33 PM

    I love the way you self medicate!

    I'm not sure how to deal with burnout but I'm feeling some of it too. Writing posts is becoming harder and harder to do.

    ReplyDelete
    Replies
    1. AudraFebruary 19, 2016 at 1:56 PM

      Kathy, I often mope so am trying a sunnier method now! ;)

      Not sure what has made it hard to write posts, but now I've such a backlog I'm frozen, le sigh.

      Delete
  2. Jenny @ Reading the EndFebruary 19, 2016 at 1:50 PM

    Aw, hon, it sounds like you have a ton on your plate! I hope you're being good to yourself and reading only the nicest books. Feel better! I'm glad you found time to participate in BBAW, even though you're not feeling your best. HUGS.

    ReplyDelete
    Replies
    1. AudraFebruary 19, 2016 at 2:00 PM

      Jenny, thank you for the sympathy -- I appreciate it! BBAW has been a lovely bit of shine this week or so -- been enjoying the mutual adorationing between bloggers.

      Delete
  3. UnknownFebruary 19, 2016 at 3:54 PM

    take care of yourself. with all that going on, book blogging is certainly not the good time. I hope you have some good relaxing read available

    ReplyDelete
  4. MarceFebruary 19, 2016 at 4:01 PM

    Flowers and oranges are perfect medicine :-) house financial stress are total nightmares, I understand.

    I had to smile about you still putting together your top ten for 2015. Enjoy your weekend.

    ReplyDelete
  5. Literary FelineFebruary 19, 2016 at 4:13 PM

    I'm sorry for everything you are dealing with right now. Books are my go to medicine for when I am feeling stress. I hope you enjoy Leaving Eleanor. I have a copy of that one to read and am looking forward to it. :-)

    I understand what you mean about the relentless tension of promotional machine versus personal space for introspection. I have struggled with that too at times. I wish I had an easy answer for it. If you find one, be sure an let me know!

    ReplyDelete
  6. Shannon @ River City ReadingFebruary 19, 2016 at 5:11 PM

    Such good self medicating! It can be so hard to just turn off a switch in the way you read/write when you've been doing it so long. Along with that, I think (as book bloggers) we can spend so much time turning over our own feelings on reading that it can get worse. I hope you find something that sticks and a good way to get it all out!

    ReplyDelete
  7. Terra February 19, 2016 at 11:40 PM

    Yes, I cut back on accepting free books and writing reviews, and instead mostly choose any book I want and read that one. Much more fun. Be well reading friend.

    ReplyDelete
  8. LisaFebruary 20, 2016 at 11:12 AM

    Moving is so incredibly stressful in and of itself! I don't think I read anything much during my last move. And then all the unpacking was so distracting as well. On top of all that you're not feeling well. I like your prescription :)

    ReplyDelete

Post a Comment

Popular posts from this blog

Goldilocks by Laura Lam

Image
She said her goodbyes, one by one. She spoke out loud to them, her voice soft but unwavering. Sharing her memories, thanking them for what they had learned, what they had taught her. If they could speak, would they accept their fate? Or would they beg, plead, fight for the same chance at life? If you've seen anything about this book, you've likely seen the formula that it's The Handmaid's Tale meets The Martian , and that's a pretty apt pitch. US society has turned so conservative that women have been pushed from their jobs. Earth has been so destroyed that there's urgent need to move to a new planet and one has been found in a "Goldilocks"-zone: not too hot, not too cold. Goldilocks by Laura Lam Orbit, 2020 Review copy via publisher Read Harder reading challenge Valerie Black, genius inventor, has been building toward this momentous event -- with technology, money, and skilled crew. Her ward, Naomi Lovelace, is to be the crew's bio
Read more

The Overstory by Richard Powers

Image
The best arguments in the world won't change a person's mind. The only thing that can do that is a good story. A book club pick I was pretty unenthusiastic about: prize winners always disappoint me, and I am impatient with fiction by white men. Intellectually I understand the dangers of climate change but find myself unable to connect with stories about it. This book felt like it would be a slog. The opening vignettes intrigued me -- they were great! -- but I just could not fathom how they would encompass 502 pages when each one was such a brief, and seemingly complete, sliver. I should be less judgy, I know. The Overstory by Richard Powers W.W. Norton & Company, 2019 Personal copy Powers pulled together these small slivers into a book that hit me with surprising impact, a story that left me breathless and a little teary. As a tween who was obsessed with the radical environmental activists of the 1980s and 1990s who grew into an organizer whose
Read more

Weekend reads, or quaran-weekend

Image
How are you doing? I think this is my sixth week of pretty serious social distancing and as an extrovert, I Am Dying. I mean, there's been an embarrassment of riches when it comes to Zoom meetings, but I'm also experiencing serious Zoom fatigue. Unabridged Kid is a wicked extrovert to and while he's loving being home with me all the time, he's also missing his farm community. Our coronahobby has been gardening, in that we're checking daily on the bulbs I planted last fall and buying already established flowers and putting them into the yard. We're addicted. We've also started seeds but that's not going as well and is vastly less satisfying. Other than mock gardening, I haven't indulged in my hobbies as much as I'd like; I've been too tired and stressed to do more than watch tv. But I'm finally adjusting: I'm dressing up for work, which has actually helped me keep Work Time to work hours, and doing non-work the rest of the time
Read more

Reading Challenge: Read Harder 2020

Image
For 2019, I did two reading challenges: Historical Fiction and Read Harder . Read Harder changed my reading life. I had initially rolled my eyes at about a fourth of the requirements, but in the end, every book I was "forced" to read was ultimately really wonderful. I ended up learning something, enjoying more than I anticipated, and was introduced to new authors and ideas. Many of my favorite reads for 2019 were due to Read Harder -- now I feel like I 'get' reading challenges and I'm hooked! So I'm pretty excited for Read Harder 2020 . If you can recommend anything that fits one of these 24 options, let me know! I'm still developing my list. Read Harder 2020 1) Read a YA nonfiction book An Indigenous Peoples' History of the United States for Young People 2) Read a retelling of a classic of the canon, fairytale, or myth by an author of color Beloved by Toni Morrison One Thousand and One Nights by Hanan al-Shaykh Tender by Sofia Sam
Read more