Book Love: I'd Rather Be Reading by Anne Bogel

I strongly identify as a reader and long have.  I was reading before kindergarten and spent many days of my homeschooling years hiding in the bathroom with books I hid with the extra blankets in there (months later we were cleaning out and we found a long overdue library book hiding, acted like I had NO IDEA how it got there.)

In my late teens-early 20s I wasn't reading much but then a few years ago I started to get back into it.  And now I read a lot.  A LOT.  I aim for at least 10 hours a week and am on track to finish over 150 books this year.  I spend a good deal of my free time reading. 

So it's no surprise that when book whisperer Anne Bogel (of Modern Mrs. Darcy and What Should I Read Next?) wrote a book about reading: I'd Rather Be Reading: The Delights and Dilemmas of the Reading Life, I was going to read that.  I even went so far as to pre-order the book which is something previously only reserved for Harry Potter and Christy Miller.  

Because besides organizing and planning my reading, I also like reading about reading.  Besides reading I listen to reading podcasts, read blogs about reading, and love reading lists of books that others I trust recommend.  So a book all about the pains and fun of being a bookworm greatly appealed to me.

The book is dedicated to:

For everyone who's ever finished a book under the covers with a flashlight when they were supposed to be sleeping.

And I actually started this book, with a flashlight, at the lake, when all 3 of my boys were sleeping.  It felt pretty appropriate.

There is a chapter about confessing literary sins (which were largely funny except for those crazy people who don't like Harry Potter.  I do not see how that is even possible.).  A chapter about organizing your bookshelf (people have STRONG opinions about that), and the books that hooked you.  

I don't know what book hooked me.  The first ones I remember reading are Berenstain Bears (and now, as an adult and mother, I have finally fulfilled my childhood dream of owning all the ones pictured on the back cover in my childhood.  It's lovely).  I remember reading SO MANY of the Babysitter Club books in middle school.  Oh how I loved those.  Then Christy Miller and all her friends carried me through later middle school and high school (and now, I still read everything Robin Jones Gunn writes about them).  My little sister got me reading Harry Potter in college and I am forever grateful to her for that (have already put serious thought into when I can start reading them to Luke). 

Hardly a week goes by that we don't go to the library at least once (and that's usually only if we are out of town), sometimes twice, sometimes hitting 4 branches in 5 days because my holds are maxed out and I want certain books NOW.  I do know I appreciate the library due dates to keep me reading some books before they have to be returned.  And that the number of nights I've stayed up too late reading number well into the hundreds each year.

Reading this book felt like finding my book-ish people.  The people who plan reading, love talking about reading, and will always be in the middle of at least one, if not more, books.  Who never leave the house without one on hand (thanks to digital books, I am always prepared for a book emergency). 

It's always good to talk to people who are different than you, to learn different perspectives and to see the world in a different way.  But it's also really really nice to have people who have things in common.  And book people are one of those people for me. 

If you are a book person, or would like to become a book person, I'd highly recommend.  It's always nice to talk all things books and reading, and people on a page are better than nobody at all!

Goodreads | Amazon

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