1. Carry a book with you

You carry what you need. Your wallet travels around town with you and, if you’re like 99% of the population, so does your phone. I suggest bringing a book with you. Waiting for a kid to get out of school? Pop open that book and inhale a few paragraphs. Sitting in the doctor’s office? Prime reading time! Is the weather nice and warm? Instead of rushing from activity to activity, reward yourself with an iced coffee and 20 minutes of reading time in the car where nobody can disturb you. The family tv show is a little boring? Finish off a chapter. Books are read word by word and each little bit gets you to the end goal of having completed an entire book.

2. Utilize your library

Librarians are good—REALLY good—at what they do, and part of what they do is make books available to the public. I find so many quality books by simply wandering into my local library and seeing what’s on display. New fiction. New nonfiction. Recipe books. YA material. Beyond that, the aisles are filled with gems, and the nonfiction sections are a particular favorite. In the past several years as I’ve been hunting for books to interest my child (that’s another post) I’ve found my curiosity piqued by the Young Adult Nonfiction section. Want to know a little bit more about women’s suffrage? Here’s a book or 10 on suffragettes! Interested in who invented the bicycle? Well, here’s a small book about that! The adult nonfiction section has my heart and I could spend a long time perusing the gems in there.

Besides wandering the library, it helps to figure out HOW to procure the books you want. I asked my reading friends lots of questions and learned how to place online holds on books, download books to a Kindle, and borrow audiobooks. Now I’ll open a tab to a recommended book list (in 2019 I started following Reese Witherspoon’s book club for recs) and then quickly add several to my ‘holds’ list at the local library. I get an email alert when the books are in, and I have several days to pick them up. My library charges $0.50 if you don’t get the book—–and I can live with that.

Note: I still buy books and I have two general guiding principles for when to buy them. 1) I like to underline and mark up my Christian non-fiction so I often buy those. 2) I give myself permission to buy fun paperback fiction when I travel. Those are the books that usually end up in my giveaway piles unless they are really really good.

3. Read fiction and nonfiction simultaneously

Like I said before, completing a book happens little by little. Rarely does anyone have great swaths of time to consume a book. Cracking open a few books at a time allows you to invest in more than one text, and the simplest way to do this is to have different kinds of books going. If you’re reading a book of poetry, I highly recommend also having a fiction book on the side. But for me, I’m always wanting to sharpen my knowledge of the Bible and God’s kingdom, so I love working through a Christian nonfiction text while also reading a fun story. I can eat up that story pretty fast, but the meat and potatoes work comes from plodding through something that requires more investigation and reflection—–both brain and heart work, really. So if I have several books running at once then I can use different parts of my mind while still working towards completing them all.

4. Read out loud

Grab a glass of water, maybe run a humidifier or suck on a cough drop first, and get to reading out loud. Even if it’s just you and your pet, words are meant to be said aloud and there is great beauty in hearing what a text sounds like. And bonus points if there’s dialogue and you want to employ an accent to make it more interesting. Life is too short to not explore the beauty of the written word in community! Read to your children, oh please read to your children. As long as they will tolerate you, read to them. Read to your husband, read to yourself, read to a friend. Hear the words as they were meant to be heard and luxuriate in a story with others around. The shared experience is worth more than you know.

5. Put your phone down

Yes, you’ve got 101 tabs open on every topic from raising a compassionate kid to how to compost, but take a bit of time to consider what all those tabs are doing to your brain and, specifically, to your attention span. Not going to be preachy here—if anything I’m preaching to myself because I’ve got a raging phone addiction—but the blips and comments online are generally not helpful to your personal growth and well being.

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Okay, that’s all for me right now. Do you have any tips you’d add to this list?

At the start of a brand new year I’ve got several books available around the house. I’m invested in Eight Dates by the fantastic marriage therapist John Gottman. Next to my bed is a fiction book I haven’t cracked open yet, a birthday present (On Reading Well by Karen Swallow Prior), and book five of Harry Potter which Livia and I put down some time ago and still need to finish. We’re also halfway through Romeo and Juliet so perhaps we should actually finish it. I’m feeling the itch for some really good Christian literature, too, and I’ve got several to choose from.

What are you reading in 2020?

Where’s the book about a really uptight woman who runs a small town cafe and rediscovers her true self in the big city? Where’s the one where she is a pill in her life in the countryside but transforms into a laid-back, devil-may-care lawyer who feels free among the skyscrapers and high rises? I’ve been reading some chicklit lately. Basically the books are contemporary romances, simple fiction, where the characters are all similar, the settings are pastoral, and the comfort foods described are all delicious. NOTHING WRONG WITH THAT.

I keep giving the books three stars on Goodreads (out of five possible) because they’re only okay. And yet, I am completely fine with “only okay” at the moment. “Only okay” doesn’t require much of me. “Only okay” is nice to read in bed after a long day. “Only okay” is my preferred method of quiet entertainment and I enjoy it more than a Netflix show that is also only okay. In some ways, I feel guilty assigning these books three stars—afterall, I keep going back for more. Who am I and what in the world am I reading?

I am Rebecca Tredway and sometimes I’m just plain tired. Tired of thinking. Tired of helping. Tired of working hard. Physically tired. And you know what a tired woman can appreciate? A book whose expectations are very very clear. Chicklit/modern/contemporary fiction with a dose of romance? Sure, why not.

On the other hand, my cynical brain can’t help but long for a book that flips all these stereotypes on their ridiculous heads. If I meet another man who wears flannel shirts, has an ever-present five o’clock shadow, and works with his hands, darn it all, I want him to be the bad guy. Let’s make the city slicker banker who has fancy shoes the one worth swooning over. C’mon, authors, you can do better. (But until then, between you, me, and the internet, I’ll probably keep reading your books. Carry on. Pass the meatloaf and potatoes and, oh, a slice of blueberry pie in my direction.)

I tend to be quiet about what I’m reading, but this year I’ve benefitted so greatly from those who share their booklists OUT LOUD that I want to do the same. Plus, I can’t tell you how many years I’ve set a goal for book-reading via Goodreads and haven’t met that goal—it’s been a battle against my inner perfectionist for sure. However, in 2018 I read like crazy. I attribute this to kickstarting my reading habit in grad school and then taking an actual break from grad school where I had more margin to sit and dream and read for fun. I like reading. Final note: I read all kinds of stuff. There are few genres I’m not willing to explore, though, as you will see, I mainly read fiction. I’m listing title, author, and stars given with five stars being the highest ranking, and I am by no means fair in my attribution of stars. Read for yourself and decide if you agree with my standards, which 100% of the time is settled by how I feel upon completing a book.

JANUARY
Sleeping Giants – Sylvain Neuvel ****
Love, Loss, and What We Ate: A Memoir – Padma Lakshmi ***
Wool (Silo series #1) – Hugh Howey ****
The Girl on the Train – Paula Hawkins **

FEBRUARY
The Memory of Running Ron McLarty ****
Lost in the Middle – Paul David Tripp *****
The Ship of Brides – Jojo Moyes ****
The Nest – Cynthia D’Aprix Sweeney ***
Scrappy Little Nobody – Anna Kendrick **

MARCH
The Versions of Us – Laura Barnett ****
Camino Island – John Grisham ****
Everything Happens for a Reason – Kate Bowler *****
The Golem and the Jinni – Helene Wecker ****
The Summer Before the War – Helen Simonson *****

APRIL
Raising the Barre – Lauren Kessler ***
James Herriot’s Animal Stories – James Herriot ****
A Good Cry: What We Learn from Tears and Laughter – Nikki Giovanni ****
Shift (Silo series #2) – Hugh Howey ****
Mr Penumbra’s 24-Hour Bookstore – Robin Sloan ***

MAY
An American Marriage – Tayari Jones ****
The Rooster Bar – John Grisham ****
The Sacred Enneagram – Christopher Heuertz *****
The Myth of the Nice Girl: Achieving a Career You Love Without Becoming a Person You Hate – Fran Hauser *****

JUNE
Children of Blood and Bone – Tomi Adeyemi ****
The Immortalists – Chloe Benjamin ****
Tales of a Female Nomad – Rita Golden Gelman ****
The Summer House – Hannah McKinnon ***
Surprised By Hope: Rethinking Heaven, the Resurrection, and the Mission of the Church – NT Wright *****

JULY
The Patron Saint of Liars – Ann Patchett ****
Text Me When You Get Home: The Evolution and Triumph of Modern Female Friendship – Kayleen Schaeffer ***

AUGUST
Kitchens of the Great Midwest – J Ryan Stradal ****
Union with Christ: The Way to Know and Enjoy God – Rankin Wilbourne ****
Love May Fail – Matthew Quick ***
The Kind Worth Killing – Peter Swanson ****
North – Scott Jurek ****
Every Note Played – Lisa Genova ****
Little Fires Everywhere – Celeste Ng ****
Educated – Tara Westover **

SEPTEMBER
Identify Theft: Reclaiming the Truth of Our Identity in Christ – Melissa Kruger ****
Girl Waits with Gun (Kopp Sisters #1) – Amy Stewart ****
Gay Girl, Good God – Jackie Hill Perry ****
Lady Cop Makes Trouble (Kopp Sisters #2) – Amy Stewart ****
Miss Kopp’s Midnight Confessions (Kopp Sisters #3) – Amy Stewart ****

OCTOBER
The Ambassador’s Wife – Jennifer Steil ****
Philippians: At His Feet Studies – Hope Blanton, Chris Gordon *****
A New Model – Ashley Graham ***
The Natty Professor – Tim Gunn ***
Good Morning, Midnight – Lily Brooks-Dalton ****

NOVEMBER
Miss Kopp Just Won’t Quit (Kopp Sisters #4) – Amy Stewart ****
Us Against You – Fredrik Backman ***
Love and Ruin – Paula McLain ****
A Place for Us – Fatima Farheen Mirza *****
Lilac Girls – Martha Hall Kelly ****

DECEMBER
So Close to Being the Sh*t – Retta **
Bright Kids Who Can’t Keep Up – Ellen Braaten *****
Island of the Mad (Mary Russell #15) – Laurie R King ****
To Shake the Sleeping Self – Jedidiah Jenkins ****
My Antonia – Willa Cather *****

We have a tradition of buying a Christmas book every year to read as a family. I write the year purchased in the front cover and add it to the pile of books from years before. Except, this year my bookshelf-and-armoire-organizing husband organized the heck out of our dining bookshelf and armoire and now I’m not so sure where the pile is. I’m pretty sure I’d find it, though, if I looked hard enough. (Have I mentioned how awesome it is to be married to a guy who vacuums, washes the floors and organizes my chaotic shelves?) Today, however, is not the day of searching for old books; it is the day of buying the new one. So now we have one fabulous Christmas book to enjoy, The Night Before Christmas, retold and illustrated by Rachel Isadora.

Livia learned that Santa wasn’t real last year, so I figured this book’s setting—in a village in Africa, complete with a black Santa—wouldn’t ruin anything for her. If anything, it solidifies the fun of Santa around the world, and how this mythical character is imagined and enjoyed in most every culture. The illustrations are wonderful and the poetry is as Clement C. Moore intended it.

I can’t wait for story time tonight.

Today is a banner day.

My child can [drumroll, please] read. Read! R-E-A-D, READ!!!

Though I love words, they are failing me now as I’m having difficulty describing how much it means to me that Livia is starting to read. Really, the whole thing blows my mind.

We’ve been reading to this kiddo since she was placed in our arms and we’ve never stopped. I signed her up for the library’s summer reading program before she even cared about it and I read competitively to her that season. (And the next year, too. Silly competitive book-lovin’ mama.) Only recently has Livia taken to flipping through books on her own; she wasn’t really the kind of baby who simply adored books. She did read her first word at 3.5 years: b-o-o-k. And we were ecstatic over that.

I ordered the Bob books from Scholastic recently and we cracked them open today. Well, guess who is ready to read? My kid. My five-almost-six year old. Sounding out words, stringing letters together, remembering the new words and reading them correctly the second time around.

Sheer awesomeness. It’s a whole new world.

One more thing. Livia and I wrote our own story—and she read it at least five times today. Here it is. And, sheerly for purposes of geographical translation, “pop” means “Coke” to all you Southerners. ; )

Alright, peeps. I need help finding a good book to read. I’m ashamed to admit I haven’t really read anything since I completed the Harry Potter series back in November.

I’m looking for a really solid, suck-you-in type of story. Fiction or non, doesn’t matter.

Help!

This little exercise has been floating around Facebook and I ignored it until Kristen posted her list today. Fifteen books that you’ll always remember in 15 minutes or less… Here ya go! (In order from earliest read to most recently read.)

Little House on the Prairie, Laura Ingalls Wilder
Little Women, Louisa May Alcott
Charlotte’s Web, E.B. White
Anne of Green Gables, L.M. Montgomery
Passion and Purity, Elisabeth Elliot
Sarum, Edward Rutherford
The Wheel of Time (#1), Robert Jordan
Lonesome Dove, Larry McMurtry
What’s So Amazing About Grace, Philip Yancey
Lord of the Rings trilogy, J.R.R. Tolkien
The Brothers K, David James Duncan
Anna Karenina, Leo Tolstoy
The Name of the Wind, Patrick Rothfuss
Raising Your Spirited Child, Mary Sheedy Kurcinka
Animal, Vegetable, Miracle, Barbara Kingsolver

We finished reading The Hobbit Sunday night. It marked the ending of the first read-aloud book we did as a family and I’ll always be grateful that Jeremy picked it out for us. We worked our way through the book, reading several pages at a time while lounging on the living room couch or sprawled across Livia’s bed. More than one evening witnessed a very tired and squirrelly child—those two traits go hand-in-hand in the Tredway household—alongside one reading parent and one cuddling parent. Oftentimes the reading parent (usually me) also needed to tickle Squirrel Girl’s backside to keep her calm while detailed passages of barreling down the Forest River River or climbing up Lonely Mountain were being read. I have this to say for The Hobbit: the first half was more entertaining for a child than the second. It seems similar to The Lord of the Rings series in that way. The first halves are more lighthearted and full of humorous stories; the latter halves are darker, more serious in nature, and thus more dramatic.

Jeremy ordered the animated version of The Hobbit, which arrived in our mailbox sometime last week. It was driving force in Liv’s resolve to sit still for the final pages of the book as we refused to watch the film before the last page of the book had been read. So Monday night saw us prepare the first ever themed meal at the old homestead… Italian meat sandwiches became Roasted Dragon Meat on Hobbit Bread. Carrot sticks magically turned into Elvish carrots that sat neatly by piles of Dwarvish (Potato) Chips. The final touch, Wizard’s Brew Liv liked to call it, was a glowing blue combination of blue lemonade and Diet Squirt. We sat down for a feast in front of the John Huston-narrated version of The Hobbit, and there we stayed until Smaug was slayed and Bilbo returned safely to his hobbit hole in the Shire.

It was then Livia told us, for the first time, that she was “falling in love…”. With the movie. With that she walked upstairs by herself to go to bed. Another first.

Apparently, I’ve never read The Hobbit. I wrapped up the Lord of the Rings trilogy before seeing the movies—books, then movies, typically the ordering I prefer—but somehow I never got around to The Hobbit… until now.

I had envisioned Livia and I moving on to the next Little House book after we completed Little House in the Big Woods, but Jeremy had a different recommendation. I questioned the sense of reading The Hobbit to a five year old. Silly me! Have I met my five year old? She has an imaginary black dragon named Big Boy living under her bed, say nothing of all the villains she pretends to be on a regular basis. (Though, I should add that she also pretends to be Jesus and the Holy Spirit. We like to keep a healthy balance around here.) This morning Jeremy has been assigned the role of Gollum, which means he has to use the phrase “my precioussss” as much as possible.

It’s been an enjoyable family time for us, this reading of The Hobbit. Last night’s installment brought about two big moments, moments that made me say “oh!” with surprise and excitement of the knowledge of their great importance in the future of Middle Earth.

First, Bilbo, stuck in the deep darkness of a cave, finds a trinket: “He…crawled along for a good way, till suddenly his hand met what felt like a tiny ring of cold metal lying on the floor of the tunnel. It was a turning point in his career, but he did not know it. He put the ring in his pocket almost without thinking; certainly it did not seem of any particular use at the moment.” (p.64)

Did Liv wonder why Mom was making big eyes and silent but silly facial expressions at Daddy at this point?! Yes, I was all geeked out at the first mention of The Ring. One ring to rule them all, One ring to find them, One ring to bring them all and in the darkness bind them.

Second, I love the way Tolkien transitions the reader’s focus into the Gollum introduction. After Bilbo finds the ring, I figured Gollum couldn’t be too far off—even though I’ve never read The Hobbit, I know the story and have seen at least one animated movie version. The Planet Earth series actually came to mind when I read the following description, “There are strange things living in the pools and lakes in the hearts of mountains: fish whose father swam in, goodness only knows how many years ago, and never swam out again, while their eyes grew bigger and bigger and bigger from trying to see in the blackness; also there are other things more slimy than fish. Even in the tunnels and caves the goblins have made for themselves there are other things living unbeknown to them that have sneaked in from outside to lie up in the dark.” (p.66)

Oooo. Shudder. Hello, Gollum!

I’ve been interested in Barbara Kingsolver’s Animal, Vegetable, Miracle for some time now. Finally I checked it out from the local library and, now that I’ve completed the spellbinding page-turner The Game of Kings, I am knee deep (or perhaps ankle deep is more accurate) in the story of the Kingsolver-Hopp Family’s year of eating locally. On this first day of spring, I find myself nodding in recognition at the author’s description of her own spring thaw: “I’m a soul on ice flung out on a rock in the sun, where the needles that pierced me began to melt all as one.”

As a mom, I couldn’t help but laugh when her youngest daughter, on the following page, refers to jonquils as tranquils.

There went the last of the needles of ice around my heart, and I understood I’d be doomed to calling the jonquils tranquils for the rest of my days. Lily is my youngest. Maybe you know how these things go. In our family, those pink birds with the long necks are called flingmos because of how their real name was cutely jumbled by my brother’s youngest child—and that was, yikes, twenty years ago.

So will we always call worms cutie pies after Liv’s pet phrase?

**Though I highly recommend The Game of Kings, the first in the Lymond Chronicles by Dorothy Dunnett, I should include a warning: it took me a very long time to get invested in the story. The only reason I pushed through was that Bryonie and Haley loved the books—so I knew the novel deserved my full attention. Though the first half seemed beyond my reading skill and I felt fairly lost, my perseverance was rewarded by the fast-paced, intriguing story-telling of the latter half. Now I’m off to find book two in the series.