I love books. Of all different kinds. Over the years, I've gone through phases of which genre I liked and read.
I've gone through the "academic phase" during college and grad school when I mostly read educational/psychology books.
There was the "gardening phase," which included LOTS of books on creating gardens, using food from the garden, herb gardens, fruit plants, etc. (I did an enormous amount of garden reading in the 11 years we rented, when we couldn't have a garden. That way, I was prepared for when we did finally get our own home and yard.) Currently, I am researching medicinal herb gardens - which herbs/weeds (not pot!) to grow and how to use them. Because ... well, because it's 2022 and the world's falling apart. Time to be prepared and take some matters into our own hands.
I went through a "cookbook phase," which started when I babysat in high school. If I got bored when the kids were sleeping, I would copy recipes from the cookbooks that were laying around. And I still do a bunch of cookbook reading in the fall/winter, when it's nice to cozy up with books about comfort food and comfort baking. (But in a family of six, there's always someone who complains about the food I toil to make, and so I have learned to like cooking less and less. Now I just want to save myself the headache and throw a frozen pizza in and say, "Here! Are you happy now!?!")
I enjoy biographies and autobiographies: U2 (a few of these), Mister Rogers (enjoyable), Billy Graham (inspirational), C.S. Lewis (can't get enough of him!), J.R.R. Tolkien (kinda wish I didn't read this one, slightly ruined my uneducated but pleasant opinion of him, but I LOVE his writing), Laura Ingalls Wilder (stopped reading this one a few pages in because I was afraid it would give me a negative opinion of her, and I just want to be able to enjoy the Little House books without a tainted opinion of the author), Julia Child (a 500+-page book that I found oddly intriguing), a book about the mother-daughter team who got Emily Dickinson's poems published (the mother who had the affair with Emily's brother is a very unique person, the way she rationalizes the affair in her head is astounding), etc. But I have to be careful these days that I don't stumble into anything too tragic or heavy or concerning. I've had enough tragedy in life that I can't afford to trigger my anxiety with other people's tragic stories. (And my anxiety is very easily triggered these days!)
I've gotten into research on, among other things, home care, farm life, sustainable living, wildlife (birds and other animals), theology (I still read a lot of these!), homeschooling, raising children, rocks and minerals, art (Monet and Impressionism!), other people's stories of the books they read, health (books on healthy eating, essential oil, vaccines, homemade natural products, etc.), etc..
[I get really into my research. Too deeply. And so I have to be careful about which topics I start digging into and when. Because once I decide to study something, my mind latches on like a pit-bull and won't rest until it reaches the bottom, thoroughly exhausting myself in the process.]
Over the years, I dabbled a little in fiction. But for years I've had a hard time with fiction because I couldn't ignore the fact that the author was creating the story, that they were manipulating your emotions however they wanted. (This is exactly why my husband hated the movie Pay It Forward, with its "manipulate your emotions" ending.) It was too fake for me, too contrived. I much preferred real-life stories or educational books.
Until recently.
Until my anxiety became so bad that I couldn't handle real-life stories anymore. If it's fiction, you don't get hit as hard when there's a tragedy. It doesn't stick with you as long. But when it's real-life, it hits you deep in your heart and it lodges there, because you know the bad thing happened to a real person. And now that I have kids, I can't bear hearing about any tragedy happening to kids because I can only see my kids' faces. Bad stories will pop in my mind years and years after reading them, and it hits me in the heart all over again.
And so I have recently flip-flopped. Now I avoid real stories, unless they're pleasant ones, and I read fiction. But not really "real-life-based" fiction, because so many of those are about tragedies. So I read either gentle, sweet, charming fiction (kids' books) or fantasy/not-real-life-type fiction, such as C.S. Lewis's space trilogy (Love him! Not just his writing, but him. As a person. I'm addicted.), The Hobbit and Lord of the Rings (best books ever!), Alice in Wonderland, The Last Unicorn, The Never-Ending Story, etc. The more fanciful and bizarre, the better. (Interesting bizarre, not bad, naughty, or evil bizarre.)
And I'm also getting into well-written youth books because those never go out of style and are quite safe (Narnia series, Wind in the Willows - a favorite!) and the classics I never read when I was younger (Little Women, Frankenstein, Anne of Green Gables, Jane Austen, etc.).
Over the years, there've been too many books to count. So I couldn't list them all by name if I wanted to. (I so wish I had kept a list of all the books I read, with my own personal notes or rating of the book. I'd love to have a list like that. Could you imagine!?!)
In fact, the other day, I was sitting in the living room, and I picked up a book and then put it down right away and said, "I don't feel like reading right now." And my youngest looks up with a shocked face and says, "I never thought I'd hear you say that!" I hadn't noticed that they noticed how much I read. (But I wish it rubbed off on them, that they would love books as much as I do. But, alas, it's not so. Because, of course, how could boring old books possibly compete with video games and YouTube!?!)
I'm realizing that the hardest part for me right now, with all the good books on my bookshelf, is figuring out what to read first. And so I end up with 4 or 5 books going at once. And I find myself wanting to reread the best books (The Hobbit, Lord of the Rings, Wind in the Willows, etc.) but also wanting to start a new one - because if I just keep rereading the best, I'll never get through the others I have. (I'm someone who could easily keep doing the same thing everyday and it never gets old: eat the same few meals, watch the same few shows, read the same few books, do the same few hobbies, talk to the same few people, take the same walk while listening to the same music, etc. Nothing flashy, nothing exciting. Just comfortable, safe, and predictable. Perfect.)
Well, I'm gonna go now. I gotta wash the same few dishes I wash everyday. (Yeah, that does gets old!) And then later I'll try to make some time to read a bit from The Hobbit. Or maybe Anne of Green Gables or The Magnificent Obsession (by Anne Graham Lotz). Or maybe the U2 biography I'm slowly working through. Or, ooh, how about The Princess Bride I'm halfway through? (Boy, is it hard to choose!)
Have a happy Easter everyone!
And go read something good!
[And because it's Easter: Sweetly Broken by Jeremy Riddle and Secret Ambition by Michael W. Smith. Go ahead and watch them. You might never get the chance again.]
