The answer is no, but ...
For those of you that follow my blog you know I love reading. I read about 8 to 10 books per month. Well, really I read about half that and listen to audiobooks for the other half. In addition to my regular reading time in the afternoon and evening, I listen to audiobooks while I exercise. Even on days when I am not looking forward to exercising (quite often), I do look forward to listening to my latest audiobook. This gives me 1 to 2 hours a day of book listening in addition to the time I spend reading.
When reading I focus on books that I can either learn from or be entertained by. When a book can do both it is a total winner. I find books to read in a variety of ways.
Many of the non-fiction books I read reference other books. I will borrow, hold or tag these titles in one of the two library/book apps I use, Libby and Hoopla. As I have mentioned in my blog, both of these apps are amazing. With these apps and your community library card, you can borrow books for free! Books can be put on hold if all the copies are taken, and you can create lists of ones you want to read. Totally awesome.
I also use Goodreads which is a book tracking app. I established a reading challenge for this year of 52 books (I thought one book a week would be a good goal). I am currently at 100 books, with a couple of weeks left in the year. After finishing a book, I mark it as read in Goodreads and then write a review of it. This app is where I store the info that goes into my monthly reading updates on my blog. Based on the books read, Goodreads will recommend other books. These, along with their regular emails highlighting new and popular books, all go into my library apps as borrowed, on hold, or tagged.
Again, for those of you that follow my reading post, you know I have read many books on fitness, wellness, health and diet. These include Why We Sleep: Unlocking the Power of Sleep and Dreams, Why We Get Fat: And What to Do About It, How Not to Die: Discover the Foods Scientifically Proven to Prevent and Reverse Disease, Quench: Beat Fatigue, Drop Weight and Heal Your Body Through the New Science of Optimum Hydration, Younger Next Year.
These are the best ones I have read. If you are only going to read two, (one is not enough) I would suggest Younger Next Year and How Not to Die.
The combination of the focus on fitness in Younger Next Year and diet in How Not to Die will get you on a healthier track even if you follow just some of the suggestions (although the more you follow the better you will feel).
I really enjoy reading about American history, American political history, biographies and autobiographies. Some of my favourite are Benjamin Franklin: An American Life, Einstein: His Life and Universe, The Audacity of Hope: Thoughts on Reclaiming the American Dream, Obama's Wars, Steve Jobs, The Wright Brothers, Notorious RBG: The Life and Times of Ruth Bader Ginsburg, Sisters in Law: How Sandra Day O'Connor and Ruth Bader Ginsburg Went to the Supreme Court and Changed the World, Hillbilly Elegy: A Memoir of a Family and Culture in Crisis, Leonardo da Vinci, The Autobiography of Malcolm X, Tough Love: My Story of the Things Worth Fighting For, The World As It Is: Inside the Obama Whitehouse, Man of the World: The Further Endeavours of Bill Clinton, The Education of an Idealist, Eisenhower in War and Peace, Unbroken: A World War II Story of Survival, Resilience and Redemption, Grant, I Heard My Country Calling: A Memoir, The Passage of Power, Trumpocalypse: Restoring American Democracy, Undaunted: My Fight Against America's Enemies, at Home and Abroad, Battlegrounds: The Fight to Defend the Free World, Leadership in Turbulent Times.
I enjoyed and learned from all these books. Some, like RBG, The Wright Brothers, books by James Webb and of course books by Barack Obama, meet the learning and entertaining criteria and are particularly enjoyable to spend time with.
I have tried to read books that my background, experience and privilege have not allowed me to naturally understand. These include Me and White Supremacy; Combat Racism, Change the World and Become a Good Ancestor, Twelve Years a Slave, Between the World and Me, The Hate U Give, Dreams from My Father: A Story of Race and Inheritance, The Autobiography of Malcolm X, The Last Black Unicorn, Becoming, The Moment of Lift: How Empowering Women Changes the World, White Trash: The 400-Year Untold History of Class in America, Maid: Hard Work, Low Pay, and a Mother's Will to Survive, I Am Not Your Slave: A Memoir, Evicted: Poverty and Profit in the American City, White Fragility: Why It's So Hard for White People to Talk About Racism, My Vanishing Country, Dear Ijeawele, or a Feminist Manifesto in Fifteen Suggestions, So You Want to Talk About Race, We Should All Be Feminists, All the Single Ladies: Unmarried Women and the Rise of an Independent Nation, The Skin We're In: A Year of Black Resistance and Power.
I learned something from all these books. I was often uncomfortable with the material and with many of the thoughts they provoked. However, in most cases, my strongest wish was that I had read these books earlier in my life.
For pure entertainment, murder mysteries are my favourite genre. I enjoyed Three Days Missing, The Late Show, The Suspect, The Huntress, Alone, Dear Wife, The Marriage Lie, The Couple Next Door, The Girl on the Train, The Woman in the Window, The Woman in Cabin 10, The Turn of the Key, Sharp Objects, All the Devils Are Here, The Guest List, One by One. In many cases I found these books to be page-turners. I could not put them down.
There are books that I either missed above or didn't seem to fit into a category.
These include The Cold Dish, The Majors, Shoe Dog: A Memoir by the Creator of NIKE, Bossypants, The Big Miss: My Years Coaching Tiger Woods, The Girl With Seven Names: A North Korean Defector's Story, Nevertheless, The Subtle Art of Not Giving a F*ck: A Counterintuitive Approach to Living a Good Life, Factfulness: Ten Reasons We're Wrong About the World - and Why Things Are Better Than You Think, Full Disclosure, Hippie, Never Tell, The Fifth Risk, Zucked: Waking Up to the Facebook Catastrophe, The Handmaid's Tale, Brain on Fire: My Month of Madness, Shortest Way Home: One Mayor's Challenge and a Model for America's Future, The Kite Runner, Moon of the Crusted Snow, Winners Take All: The Elite Charade of Changing the World, A Thousand Splendid Suns, Destined for War: Can America and China Escape Thucydide's Trap, Sea Prayer, Drift: The Unmooring of American Miltary Power, Seabiscuit: An American Legend, Fields of Fire, How Demoocracies Die: What History Reveals About Our Future.
My favourite must-read book of the year is Untamed by Glennon Doyle. I know the year is not over, but when I read this book in July I knew it would be the best book I read all year. I bought this book and asked/suggested that everyone in our family read it. So far Lauren and Kevin and have finished it and also thought it was excellent. Sean is reading the book during his holiday break from school. It is one of the most thought-provoking books I have ever read. I certainly don't agree with everything the author states and I am guessing that if I ever met Glennon, I would not enjoy being in her company for long (just long enough for me to tell her how great her book was).
But if you are looking to read a book that is sure to make you think, this is it.
So with all that I have gone through, you can see that the romance genre really doesn't fit my reading preferences. There is not a lot to learn and for me, the books are not particularly entertaining. That is probably an unfair assessment, as I have not read that many romance novels, but it is my opinion and I am sticking to it. Apparently, romance novels normally have two key elements. First, its primary focus is on the relationship and romantic love between two people. Second, it usually has an "emotionally satisfying and optimistic ending." Yuck!
Who are the most popular romance authors you ask (I know you were asking)?
These are the top 5. Here is more detail if you are really interested. Go ahead - no one will ever know you looked (smile). - https://www.tckpublishing.com/best-romance-authors/
Danielle Steel
Nora Roberts
Nicholas Sparks
Robyn Carr
Carolyn Brown
Daniel Steele is the bestselling author alive today. Her books have sold over 800 million copies (wow!) and she has written 179 books, 146 fiction. Nora Roberts is the first writer in the Romance Writer of America Hall of Fame (they have their own hall of fame?). I have not read books by any of the 15 authors listed in the link above. It is a category however that is dominated by women as 14 of the 15 writers are women.
Two romance novels did sneak their way onto my reading list. I am not exactly sure how.
I normally read the excerpt of the book and upon finding it is a romance novel, would not put it on my list. Clearly, I either didn't read the excerpt or it was sufficiently vague and misleading that I tagged the book anyway.
In Five Years by Rebecca Serle is about a woman that has her hugely successful life planned out in five-year segments. She is successful in her career, has a great network of friends, an amazing best friend, is engaged to be married, everything is great. She then has an out of body experience (more than a dream) and her whole life changes. Although the book does not meet the learning or thought-provoking criteria it was entertaining (yes I am admitting it!). I rated it a five on Goodreads. I recommend you read it, romance or not.
The book I just finished, The Book of Two Ways by Jodi Picoult, is in a whole other category. Also in the romance genre, it is so much more. The main character is a woman that failed to finish her Ph.D. in Egyptology at Yale. She becomes a Death Doula. If you have not heard that term before it is a death midwife. She helps both the person dying and their loved ones. She has fallen in love twice and although married to the second man, has never gotten over the first. She has a teenage daughter, raises her younger brother after their mother died, and survives a plane crash. Mixed into the book is some fantastic information (mostly factual) on Egyptology.
The combination of Dawn (the main character) examining her life, struggling with her teenage daughter, and describing the range of emotions that she goes through in her role as a Death Doula creates a fascinating book. I would say this book for me met the criteria for learning, thought-provoking, and entertaining. What more could you ask for. I rated it 5 out of 5 and would say it is better than many other books I rated 5.
As I get ready to choose books for 2021 I might have to consider adding romance as a category for my reading. At least, three versus the two I read this year!
You can find more information on the books mentioned above in my What to Read blog post that I update monthly. For all the titles above you will find the author, my rating out of 5 along with a brief review. As always send me any thoughts or comments at thethirdperiod.ca@gmail.com
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