Sometimes I Feel Like a Literary Poser, and Other Closely Guarded Reading Secrets

Sometimes I feel like a literary poser. I was a college English major and I’ve always been a huge reader. But over the last few years my reading habits have changed.

I have spent three of the last nine years actively nursing a baby and/or pumping breast milk every four to six hours. Then I hauled around a toddler for at least another three to four years.  When I was pregnant with my third child, my husband bought me a Kindle. As a book purist, I was staunchly against this. It took my husband years to convince me I should indie publish with Amazon and I only agreed once Createspace became available because I refused to only be a e-book.

I loved Paperback Swap, when it was in it’s earlier iteration. For the cost of shipping, I could have new novels constantly circulating in and out of my house. It was a great deal and kept me reading even when my budget was small and I couldn’t manage getting to the library, or it was too hard to haul the kids along.

But that Kindle Paperwhite, it had it’s uses. When I was up half the night nursing and pumping, I could read with the lighted screen and turn page with the flick of a finger. With our youngest I did the unenviable nurse, bottle and pump cycle every four hours around the clock. Reading was the only thing that kept me awake. Pumping is boring and sleep is nearly always more appealing, especially when you know have to get up and do it all again in just another two or three hours. But having a new book on my Kindle, that helped. I even occasionally finished a book and realized I still have twenty minutes of pumping to go, and just buy a new one with one click.

Yes, there definitely were advantages to my Kindle. I figured out how to balance it on one hand with the same wrist I supported the baby’s head with. That way I still had a free hand to position the baby or deal with other logistics and I could turn a page with just my thumb.

Recently I read my first paper book in years. The last one I bought was three years ago and I still haven’t finished it. I’ve started using the library again, now that I’m there so often to pick up homeschooling stuff, but I still feel like a literary poser.

I love to read and I love books but those two things don’t necessarily go together. I buy second-hand books compulsively for my kids. I can’t go to our local 2nd & Charles without spending an hour (or three) digging through the shelves of picture books looking for hidden treasures.

I don’t keep up with the latest literature, I rarely read a book just because it was a best seller. Sometimes I watch the movie before I read the book to see if it’s worth it. (Though I’m forcing myself to finish The Guersey Literary and Potato Peel Pie Society before I check out the new Netflix movie). I sometimes find I like teen books better, when they are well-written. I read the Sisterhood of the Traveling Pants years ago, after having seen and enjoyed the movie. I recently discovered The Penderwicks and when my daughter lost interest I decided to finish the series on my own.

Currently on my nightstand is a towering pile of books including The Well Trained Mind (at this rate I’ll never get to it until my kids are grown up and I’m done homeschooling.), Goliath Must Fall by Louis Giglio, and the aforementioned Guernsey Literary and Potato Peel Pie Society, The Penderwicks in Spring, and the lovely new, aptly named title by Anne Bogel, I’d Rather Be Reading. (Her admonishment to confess my literary sins is part of the inspiration for this post. Check out her new book here. Or her previous one which I also loved.)

I’ve never read To Kill a Mockingbird, War and Peace or Gone with the Wind (though I did once start Gone with the Wind). I can’t abide James Joyce. I have certain authors I reread often and frequently haunt their websites and social media accounts looking for news of a new book, even though it’s been years. (Yes, Lawana Blackwell, I’m talking about you.) I have authors I read because their work is similar to authors I love who are no longer publishing books, and while they aren’t as good, they are good enough.

I worry about investing time in a book with an unhappy ending so I return to the same authors again and again because I know they’ve never let me down. Nothing is sadder than realizing you’ve read everything an author has ever written and the author is deceased or retired.

The truth is, there is no proper definition of a reader. Books are meant to be comfortable friends, not trophies displayed on Goodreads. There will be a time when I want to challenge myself by reading classic books, like a marathon of the mind, delving through old words looking for new truth. But not right now.

Does that mean I forfeit my book nerd status and my writer cred? I don’t think so. We get to judge the books but not readers. All that is supposed to matter is that we keep reading.