Eight Book Minimum: Reading anarchy definitely happened!

[spindizzy]

HELLO INTERNET, it's been a while! I posted about my reading anarchy plan two lockdowns, one house purchase, and a literal entire year ago and I'm here to report that it was a mixed experience.

The good:

• I returned to my comfort-reading habits of historical romance, queer mysteries, and survival horror! Giving myself permission to follow my reading whims and binge-read all my trashiest favourites has been so relaxing. Apparently putting pressure on yourself about what you read makes it harder to enjoy yourself? Sounds fake, but okay.


• Scooby-Doo style pulled the mask off all of the "But this book should be my thing, why don't I love it?" reactions I had to books and discovered that it was seasonal depression all along! I don't remember who it was that commented on an Eight Book Minimum post to point out that it sounded like depression, but you were right!


• My partner and I have F I N A L L Y been able to get all of our books out of storage! I'm still organising our bookshelves, but this is such a joyous thing. I've got a bookcase dedicated to the books I love most, which is peak KonMari goals! And I can shelve things in groupings that make sense to me! My bookcases are in the process of becoming an oddly-shaped mind map and I am so excited.

The bad:

• I just... Stopped tracking my reading online. No reviews. No GoodReads. No Storygraph. Only the most sporadic acknowledgement that I've ever even seen a book on twitter. Which had the knock-on effect of...


• ... I stopped writing reviews. I've always been spotty at posting regularly, yes, but Eight Book Minimum was basically how I figured out what I thought about books. Most of my reviews started life as three sentences in an Eight Book Minimum post and spiralled from there! So Eight Book Minimum falling out of my writing life... Kinda took everything else out with it. And on the one hand it's fine! 2021 was specifically a year of recovery! On the other hand: that's a lot that got taken out.

Like I said, mixed experience! I can't say how much of the bad stuff is seasonal depression/regular depression/burnout finally catching up with me, and how much was specifically due to not giving myself a reason to come back here and yell about books! But I can say that I missed you all, and I missed being here. So... What if I start small? I don't think I could deal with setting a big yearly goal right now, but maybe i'll be okay with a small monthly goal! I'm gonna try to read some books, and actually come back to talk about them. Eight books sounds like a good minimum. ;P

In the meantime: how are you all! What are you reading? I've just started reading an f/f manga called Still Sick, about a woman whose coworker discovers she draws f/f doujinshi; they presumably kiss at some point, but the protagonist has a lot of wishing for the ground to swallow her up to get through before then.

Stay safe and look after yourselves, internet. I'll see you in February. ♥