M. Suzanne Terry

A big part of my reading life is taking notes – on what I’ve read and when I read it, how much I liked it, what I want to read, etc. Maybe someone out there is wondering, “But…why? Isn’t reading enjoyable enough on its own?” Well, yes. I loved to read long before I actually kept any sort of records about it. But why settle for enjoyable enough when I can heighten the enjoyment? That’s what tracking does for me.

There are several reasons why I track my reading habits and goals:

• It helps me stay out of the reading rut. Left to my own devices, I will grab the nearest thing to read and plow my way through. When I do this, I tend to gravitate to certain types of books. There’s nothing wrong with that, of course, but after a while, even my favorite genre starts to seem like homework if that’s all I’m reading. Actually planning my reading and keeping track of what I’ve finished helps me head off staleness at the pass so that I am more likely to stay engaged.
• Related to the first point, tracking my reading helps me ensure that I’m not just sticking to my comfort zone by gravitating toward authors who tell stories that are similar to my own. One of my favorite benefits of reading is that it constantly fine-tunes my ability to empathize and appreciate other people’s perspectives, and maintaining some diversity in my selections is a good way to aid this process. 
• Tracking gives me better recommendations. I love tracking through Scribd, because when I rate something highly after I finish it, it updates with suggestions for other books I might enjoy. So what if my TBR list is so long I’d never finish it in 10 lifetimes? I like having well-curated choices.
• Keeping up with what I’ve read also helps me offer better recommendations to others. Inevitably, upon learning that I love to read, people will ask, “What’s the best book you’ve read?” First, how dare you ask me to choose just one. Second, off the top of my head? I have no idea. I can gush at length about one of the books I’m currently reading, but if a person (or one of my book clubs) is actually looking for something I liked that they might like, too? I’m going to pull up the trusty Goodreads app and peruse my personal reading challenge lists and filter through until I find something I think they’ll enjoy. 

In March 2020, when everything shut down, I found myself going through my planner and crossing out all the plans that were getting canceled. I tried making it festive by putting stickers over them, but the novelty of that wore off quickly. So as the fresh pages of new weeks appeared, I just started using my planner as my TBR list. I limited it to my notes section in my 2021 planner, but it was already full by the end of August. Now I have a designated book journal that I carry around. 

I also just got the newly released book journal by Anne Bogel (aka Modern Mrs. Darcy, queen of book lists) called My Reading Life. I have started thumbing through it and think it will be an excellent way to track at least the books I read for book club, as the tracking pages each have a notes section. She also gives tips for leading book club discussions (which is great – because I’m not awesome at that), her own tips for overcoming ruts, suggestions for setting reading goals, and, of course, more TBR lists. I look forward to using it!

Do you track your reading? If so, what’s your process like?

I read so many good things this month that I had a hard time narrowing it down to five. Because I’m writing about books all month (and thus will have ample opportunity to discuss the others), I am appeased to highlight the five this month that stood out not only because I really liked them but also because of a certain factor that made this book (or, in the case of the first one, this author) particularly extraordinary.

Super vague? Yes. But I know what I meant, and hopefully you will, too, soon. I promise there’s method to the madness.

1. Anxious People by Fredrik Backman – Let me get this out of the way first – I LOOOOOVE Fredrik Backman. He writes character-driven fiction that is hilarious, charming, and detailed. When my own characters are falling flat and I can’t seem to make them come alive, I pause and read a little while out of whichever of his books is nearest to me to remind myself how to do it. Another reason I love his books is that in each one, there is at least one scenario that could go quite badly, but then the characters choose empathy and kindness instead of fear or selfishness, and the reader gets to see how wonderfully those decisions play out. And this may be my favorite book of his I’ve read yet. I wish I could give it more than five stars on Goodreads, because five is not enough.
2. The Island of Sea Women by Lisa See – Set mainly in Jeju off the coast of Korea, this book takes you through the story of the friendship and hardships between two haenyeo (female divers who harvested the ocean to support their families). I didn’t know anything about these legendary women before I picked up this book, and the tale is intriguing. While the book itself is fiction, it takes you through the area’s history, highlighting particularly the regimes in control, particularly during World War II and the Korean war (minor tangent – colonialism is trash). I also found the family structure in the divers’ subculture fascinating. Definitely glad my book club chose this one, because I’m not sure I would have picked it up myself, and I would have been missing out.
3. Caste by Isabel Wilkerson – I started reading Caste as part of HR’s summer book club at work. There has been a lot of praise about this book already, and I don’t have much to add to what has already been said, except to say that it lives up to the hype. It is both meticulously researched and artfully written. One of the reasons it takes me so long to get through a lot of nonfiction is that it often reads so drily. It still took me a while to read this one but that’s because I didn’t want to miss a single word of her beautiful prose. I can’t wait to read her previous book The Warmth of Other Suns next.
4. How To Be Both by Ali Smith – This book is also exquisitely written. It’s presented in two interrelated parts – one set in the 1400s and one set in more modern times. Some versions are printed with the older time frame first and some with the more recent time frame first. My copy started in recent years, but I kinda want to read it again a few years from now (after I’ve forgotten enough details that it feels quasi-new-ish) with the other time frame first.
5. Hollow Kingdom by Kira Jane Buxton – Ok, so I haven’t technically finished this one yet. I’m listening during my commute, so it takes a little longer to get through it. But I don’t need to finish it to know I adore it. The main narrator is a crow. That’s it. That’s all it took to sell me on this series. But it gets better – it’s a zombie novel told from the perspective of a crow. I found out about it when we had our first in-person meeting of our book club at the local public library, and we were invited to take a couple of free books that they were sent. I chose the second book in the series (Feral Creatures, which is on the TBR for this month), so I decided to listen to the library’s audio copy first. It did not disappoint. Clever concept and good, witty writing. 

What have you read recently that you’d recommend?

I’m writing about my love of books all month.