One of the challenges of an avid reading life is not just deciding what to read next but maintaining a good balance so whenever you have a moment to read, you have a book on hand that you want to read. Think David Allen’s Getting Things Done and contexts. If it’s quiet in the early morning, I’m going to pick up something different than I would, say, in the afternoon when I’m tired and surrounded by chaos.
I start out with a document in Notes for each year where I track my reading. As book clubs I follow announce their selections, I fill them in for each month. The Well Read Mom just announced their selections for the next school year so yes, I’ve already started my Notes doc called Reading 2019 and filled in the WRM selections.
Here is what I have planned for August:
Close Reads podcast: Crossing to Safety (Stegner). This particular book will be read slowly through August and September. I read along with the podcast, reading the part that will be discussed in the next podcast but no more, even if I’ve already read the book (as I have this one). This accounts for an hour or two of reading per week, usually part of my weekend morning reading.
Guardian book club: Moonstone (Collins). I like to read these as soon as possible as that makes it more fun to read the articles they post every Tuesday about the current selection.
Bookenings podcast: Blood Meridian (McCarthy). This is the book they will discuss in September so I’ll read it in the latter half of the month. I like to have it read before they start discussing it even though they often start with a podcast that is solely background. This particular selection will follow Moonstone.
Modern Mrs. Darcy book club: I’ll Be Your Blue Sky (Santos). The discussion forum opens at the beginning of the month while the actual discussion is sometime during the last week of the month. I never start these until the beginning of the month. Sometimes I read them sooner so I can discuss them online before the formal discussion, and sometimes I read them later, finishing moments before the formal discussion begins (seriously!). It just depends on the month and what else I’m reading.
Well Read Mom: just a couple of short stories we will get once they mail out the materials for the new year. Our group meets early in the month so I try to read the selection the month before it is discussed.
Once I’ve outlined the selections for various book clubs, I turn to what I plan to read ahead for school. Currently I am reading through Ambleside Online Year 10. I try to get through the core books for each term in 3-4 months. My weekday early morning reading is devoted to these selections, so about 5 hours per week.
I start with the main history selection and then add in a biography or something from geography or government/economics. In August the plan is to read the Term One selection from A History of the American Peoples (Johnson) as the history selection and then Two Years Before the Mast as a geography selection.
I try to read one science book every month that I might use for school. This is not a textbook but rather something along the lines of Silent Spring (Carson) or The Control of Nature (McPhee). I have not yet selected a book in this category for August.
The next category would be devotional, worldview, citizenship or life skills. This is the type of stuff we were given for Bible class in our senior year of high school. In August, I’m reading a recommended devotional for year 10 Knowing God (Packer).
Finally, literature. Ideally, I like to read these along with the kids as this is my favorite category and the ones I love most to talk about. At the same time, I like to have already read the books at least once so I know where they’re going. In August, I will be reading Uncle Tom’s Cabin (Stowe) which I’ve never read before.
For literature with my younger two, I’ll be reading the weekly assigned portions of The Hobbit (Tolkien) along with Joey (one chapter per week which is 45-60 minutes of audio) and The Princess and the Goblin (MacDonald) along with Caroline (about 30 minutes of audio weekly). I usually read these sometime over the weekend for the upcoming week.
Once all those books are filled in, I go back through the list and make sure I’m covering all my bases in terms of the types of books I like to be reading. It’s kind of like eating balanced meals – if I’m not reading any classics, I’ll get a hankering for a good classic. I also like to read memoirs and nonfiction. This is the balancing step – if things are balanced, I’m far more likely to stick to my plan. My main categories are classics, modern classics (20th century), contemporary fiction, and nonfiction, which includes biography/memoir.
Looking at my selections for August, I would consider Uncle Tom’s Cabin and Moonstone to be classics. The latter is considered the first detective book and heavily inspired mystery writers such as Dorothy Sayers. Modern classics would include Crossing to Safety and Blood Meridian. I’ll Be Your Blue Sky is my contemporary fiction selection (and the main reason why I participate in the Modern Mrs. Darcy book club).
What’s missing from that list is nonfiction. The science book I choose for AO Year 10 may partially fulfill this category. Other options on my shortlist include Complications (Gawande), When Breath Becomes Air (Kalanithi) or something by Malcolm Gladwell.
Once I get my categories filled, I review my list for Kindle books vs audiobooks. I like to have something lighter to listen to during my morning walks. At the moment I’m listening to The Half-Blood Prince (Rowling) which will carry over well into August. Then I like to have something more serious that I can really focus on while knitting or spinning. Currently that is Northanger Abbey (Austen) which I also expect to carry over into August. There is a group on the Modern Mrs. Darcy book club forums which will be slowly reading Middlemarch over the next four months so that may follow Northanger Abbey.
For the kids, I go through a similar process. The book we’ll be discussing for the kids book club at the Waverly Community Library toward the end of the month is Lawn Boy (Paulsen). It’s a fairly short book and my weakest reader is reading this independently a chapter or two a day, so I probably won’t read this one aloud. Sarah Mackenzie is featuring Brandon Mull for her book club in August and the suggested title is Fablehaven which I have both on Kindle and Audible.
In July I began reading aloud Number the Stars (Lowry) which will continue into August. For our morning read-aloud time at the beginning of school each day, I like to alternate between more modern selections (such as Number the Stars) and classics. The next read-aloud in the queue is The Water Babies (Kingsley) which Jonathan Auxier said heavily inspired his next book Sweep which is due out at the end of September. The Water Babies definitely falls into the classics category. Just like I have ongoing audiobooks for my morning walks, we also have an ongoing audiobook for drives to town and such. At the moment we are listening to The Borrowers Afield (Norton) which will carry over into August and is also a classic.
Finally, I look at the calendar for the upcoming month and see if there is anything unusual happening that might affect my reading life.
The kids are spending a week in Kentucky, which means I’ll be driving to Kentucky by myself to pick them up and then back home from Kentucky with all of them. I think on the way back we will listen to Fablehaven for the Read Aloud Revival book club which is a 9 hour audiobook and well-suited for the 11-hour drive.
While the kids are gone, I’m actually planning a road trip for myself. It has yet to be seen whether Steve will be going with me. Regardless, the drive is 24+ hours each way which means lots of time for audiobooks for grown-ups. Scanning back through my list, the following books are all on audio and would be great options for the trip: Before the Mast and Uncle Tom’s Cabin from AO Year 10 as well as Moonstone and Blood Meridian from the book club reads. I also have my 18 in 2018 booklist from which there are four audiobooks well-suited for this trip: Cormac McCarthy’s All the Pretty Horses and The Road and Kent Haruf’s Plainsong and Eventide. In addition to that, I’ve been eyeing All the Kings Men (Warren) and Empire Falls (Russo) just for fun. Given the length of the trip, I’ll be able to listen to all or parts of several of those.
Now it may sound like I have everything planned out, but there is actually quite a bit of room for reading on a whim. Because we all know, reading on a whim is the most fun part of reading. I’ve already mentioned the science and nonfiction selections that have yet to be determined. For science, I likely will read several samples and simply continue reading whichever one I like best. I also only have only one contemporary fiction selection, and those tend to be mostly read on impulse based on happens to be available from the library. Now Read This announces their selection at the beginning of the month, and if it sounds good, I may add that to my list. And while I have downloaded the audiobooks I’ve mentioned, I never really know what I’m going to listen to next until I hit play.
You’ll also notice that while most of my reading is scheduled – reading ahead for school during my early morning reading on weekdays and more serious book club selections during early morning reading on the weekend, lighter audiobooks while I walk or drive in town and more serious audiobooks for long road drives or while I spin or knit – there is also reading that isn’t scheduled. Nonfiction and contemporary fiction tend to be read in the evenings and weekend afternoons or when I have a few moments in the car while I’m waiting for someone. So while I have plenty of structure to support a solid reading life, I also have lots of room for reading on a whim, which, again, is the most fun part of an avid reading life.