What are you reading?

I have just finished reading Frances Finkel and The Passenger Pigeon by D.M, Mahoney. I loved and hope that a movie is made from it!

Reading the Four Agreements , Emergency and Disaster Management, International Pharmacology and Environmental Ecology . Trying to get to a point I enjoy sitting with an actual book as I tend to read everything online , skim or glance and rarely just read to read. I never read fiction , if a book has no value as far as teaching or learning new information, I dont bother.
Goal for this year is to see if I can learn to read for enjoyment and not information or education. It seems like a waste of time to me but if I can find a way to use it as a way to relax or step back then maybe it has value. 🙂
Its a stiff order , and questionable if it will work, but going to try!

The Bodies of Others: The New Authoritarians, COVID-19 and The War Against the Human, Naomi Wolf.

So you are going to try something different as you said, "Goal for this year is to see if I can learn to read for enjoyment and not information or education. It seems like a waste of time to me but if I can find a way to use it as a way to relax or step back then maybe it has value."

My Dad was totally self-educated, and a voracious reader. His choice for relaxation was primarily biography, but he pointed out when I complained about reading the classics (Catholic HS girls' education in the 1960's.) "You can learn something from everything you read if you keep an open mind. " He is right - now I love to read historical fiction, especially written by people of other countries, cultures, a variety of religions. It has contributed to my understanding of people, my knowledge of geography and history. I also love to read fiction by regional author who write from their personal knowledge and experience of their local culture...Maybe you can "dip your toes" into that pool?
Sue

@wisfamily That series of books is on my shelves, read several times through the years, with underlines and comments in the margins. Growing up, books were held in very high esteem in our house, and marking them up was a major no-no. Now, ones that are important to me, ones I will keep, get highlighters and notes because they are "speaking" to me. Right now, I am going through training for peritoneal dialysis, and everything is contained in an iPad program. Dang, I hate that I cannot do the highlighting, marks and notes! My little spiral notebook is getting a workout.

Take your time, digest the words of wisdom, inhale the spirit the lessons are presented.....

On my relaxation reading table is an ebook that requires no heavy thinking, always a good way to end the day.
Ginger

@wisfamily

I love to read and always have since I could hold a book up until this day. I mostly read fiction since college and have favorite authors. I do take exception to your point that implies fiction has no value as far as teaching or learning new information. That is not the case and what @sueinmn said about her father.....my father was of the same mind. I grew up around books.

There have been numerous scientific studies concluding that reading fiction has multiple benefits. Fiction activates the area of the mind relating to empathy. Essentially the brain reacts as if we are actually living the events and can help us in negotiating our social world and sometimes complex relationships.

Fiction is effective for releaving stress because you are temporarily disengaged from events around you causing that stress. This is why fiction readers tend to sleep better. Regular readers of fiction tend to have lower stress levels, higher self esteem and lower rates of depression than non readers.

Fiction opens up your mind and can help you to look at different perspectives of people and perhaps be more appreciative and understanding of others.

Fiction readers tend to have a larger and better vocabulary. I am the type to tends to look up an unfamiliar word. Both my children have amazing vocabularies and are masterful at writing.

You can learn anything by reading anything , even the back of a soup can label. Your book The Four Agreements does sound interesting but I had to smile when I saw the topics regarding mastering awareness and not making assumptions. An avid fiction reader can achieve all that.

While I do read non fiction from time to time my true joy is fiction.....I am currently reading a favorite author...Joyce Carol Oates...."The Falls". I have also put a hold on the latest Stephen King novel (there's an author and makes time fly by).

Do I learn something new everytime I pick up a fiction novel....you bet I do.

FL Mary

I come from a family of people who always were reading more than one book. So my BIP aka 'books in progress' list includes;
...In Sunlight and In Shadow by Mark Helprin, one of those books so well-written that I limit the number of pages I read so I don't get through it too fast,
...Fierce Pajamas, a collection of humorous essays and articles from The New Yorker,
... The Best of Sail Trim from sale magazine because I'm a sailor currently in North Carolina mountains and missing the Gulf Stream,
...You Must Remember This by Joyce Carol Oates,
...My New Orleans by Rosemary's James, a series of essays and appreciations for New Orleans by writers and musicians who live there, and
...anything by Raymond Chandler, though the current selection is an article about his life in La Jolla and later years.

If there were a book entitled "How to Stop A Cat From Being a Fussy Eater", I would read that and try to figure out how a rescue cat, that was perfectly happy to eat bugs and insects, now that she has a home, has to be bribed with Bumblebee Chunk tuna.
****************
All of the above reading, and books in general, help offset the hours of reading about breast cancer, recurrence statistics, research studies on new drugs and other things that I'd rather not be reading about. Including anything about totally preventable pandemics that weren't addressed immediately to mitigate damage.

@callalloo

You sound like you have a great sense of humor so, in between the book reading, why don't you start the cat book..sounds so funny. I used to jot down closed captions that were so funny (in the context) that I saw on tv...I used captioning all the time. Just came across it today...should continue...they are so funny and no disrespect to the live captioners. I suspect many of the captions are ASR...automatic speech recognition....which would explain the bloopers.

Joyce Carol Oates can be difficult reading as her books can be so introspective and generally from a woman's perspective (but not always). I have read so many of her books and actually returned one recently after only a chapter of two....it got tedious. I'm also a fan of Margaret Atwood (Alias Grace and The Handmaid's Tale). And give me a good English mystery any day....Dame Agatha and P.D James for example.

Also used to have 2 books going at one time but now I prefer to finish one first.

Waiting for your book to be published lol
FL Mary...Sunshine state...has been raining for past 3 hours....wow

Way back in 2012 a stray cat made my home his. I took him in and already had three cats at the time, and he fit in perfectly. He was the sweetest innocent soul.
Now, my other cats really loved food and by 'food' I mean 'anything they could eat'. It's not like I didn't feed them, mind you! They just wanted more of, well; food. One cracked hazelnuts to eat them, the other whacked string beans out of the boiling water, another jumped over my sandwich and ran off with a pickled mussel, yet another one loved anything vegetable. They all three liked orange. Go figure.
The stray though... wanted cat food. He was easy about brand and taste, but it had to be cat food 😹😻

Ah, books and cats. They just seem to go together, don't they? Whether I am using my ereader, or a printed book, there are times I read aloud. To my cat. One hand petting her, the other hand holding the book. She snuggles up on my lap and we have "quality cat and lap time". After a while we are both sound asleep....
Ginger