One of my goals in the last two years has been to take good notes while I read. I’ve found having notes helps when I start to write reviews because I have ideas, quotes, and impressions jotted down already.
A few people have mentioned they can’t seem to take notes while they read, so I wanted to write a post with five easy tips on how to get in the habit.
My vacation, and hence my challenge to read 3000 pages in 30 days, ended on Monday. Sadly, I didn’t quite reach my goal — I only read 2308 pages between December 20 and January 18. Still, that’s nothing to be ashamed of and I did get to read some pretty fabulous books.
The books I finished included Mountains Beyond Mountains by Tracy Kidder, Traveling Mercies by Anne Lamott, Dracula is Dead by Sheilah Kast and Jim Rosapepe, The Bind Assassin by Margaret Atwood, Dream Girl and Dream Life by Lauren Mechling, and Memoir: A History by Ben Yagoda.
I’ve been really burned out on blog reading that last few weeks. Particularly over my Christmas vacation (which ended yesterday, boo), I felt overwhelmed every time I sat down tried to catch up. Does that ever happen to you?
About a month ago I proposed a personal reading project for myself: read 3,000 pages in the 30 days of my Christmas break. Technically, I still have one magazine story to revise and turn in, but it’s so close to being done with the semester that I’m going to start today, yay!
I live in Madison, WI, and yesterday we had a giant blizzard. A blizzard so big the entire city shut down — city and state government, public schools, both of the major shopping malls, and the entire University of Wisconsin. That’s right, yesterday I had snow day!
Over the summer I traveled from Madison to Minnesota at least five times (I must have blocked out the exact number). Since then, I’ve gone home at least two more times. The best thing about those trips was discovering that yes, I can listen to audiobooks!
Before my long, solo car rides, I’d never been able [...]
When you’re browsing through the bookstore, reading reviews online, or just chatting about books in general, what makes a book stick out for you? Are there any subjects or themes or character types that make you look more closely?
What follows is a list of things that will pretty much guarantee I’ll give an unfamiliar book [...]
The Sisterhood of the Summer Book Reviews — a project where my sister and I read and review each others favorite books — was supposed to just be a summer thing. However, our reviews were well-received and we had fun, so we decided to keep doing reviews together throughout the year.
We saw each other this [...]
I actually don’t have any updates on my reading life for this Sunday Salon, I think because things in my regular life (i.e. everything that’s not reading) have been sort of tough the last few days.
Over the summer I’ve been interning with the Madison city newspaper, The Capital Times (TCT). Like all newspapers, TCT and [...]