Let me paint you a little picture – snuggling up under a thick, cozy blanket, on a crisp evening, nose buried in a good book – perfection no? Easily one of my favourite fall activities.
I love reading and I think it’s SO important. And sadly this once form of ‘entertainment’ has now been riddled down to ‘I don’t have time’ and is replaced with endless scrolling. Many people (especially kiddos) don’t read for pleasure anymore, and let me just say to those people, y’all are missing out.
Though it’s always been one of my favourite hobbies, I stopped too because well, I was busy. Back at Humber, I had a couple of really cool profs. I’ll always remember one – because she reminded me of my love for reading. The load from this program was heavy. I had 6 courses, interned twice a week + I was working in retail 25+ hours a week. It was a lot. But I loved it – being busy and always having something to do, on a go go go kind of schedule. In one of my classes, this prof was telling us to read a book, for pleasure. I was like ummmmm that would be nice, but when – with a slight eye role. And she said if you pick a good, interesting read, and do it for 10 minutes right before you go to sleep, you’d be surprised by how quickly you’d finish the book. And she was right – I’ve read so many books this way!
A few things you probably didn’t know about me:
- I am 98% sure I wear glasses because I read so often – and I’m totally fine with with being a blind little bat.
- When I was younger and my parents used to tell me it was time for bed, I’d sneak in a flashlight and book just to read.
- I will read the same books over and over, but only a select few. I loved the Harry Potter series growing and will continue to read them probably forever.
- I will fly though addicting books in a good 1-2 days (time permitting obviously). I usually do that at airports or on vacations.
And if you can’t tell from the photos, my two favourite genres are thrillers and motivational books (although I’m pretty picky with those). I’m currently reading All The Missing Girls, but my favourite one so far was The Twilight Wife. For the other genre, I can’t really pick a favourite, because I got something different out of each one. And that’s the best part of it. Books grow you, change you – show you different perspectives.
So do me a favour. This season, pick a book – any one you like, and do it. Read the whole thing. 10 minutes a night – that’s all it takes. Happy reading!
THRILLERS
INSPO/MOTIVATIONAL BOOKS
Hahaha I had a mandatory English minor in uni but I didn’t read half of the books that were assigned to us – I felt like having to write all those essays took all the fun out of the reading! I’ve been really into motivational books as well. Everyone’s been talking about ‘The Subtle Art of Not Giving a F*ck’ and that’s definitely on my list!
Yesss girl! I love your professor’s idea! I need to try this! I would get in so much more reading!
I love reading too! It’s such a great activity for any season but it certainly is cozy during the fall. I’v been reading Bossypants by Tina Fey 🙂
I love this so much! I always encourage reading for pleasure — in particular, reading fiction, because all you need to do is sit back, relax, and enjoy the story. Unless you want to analyze it… I have an English degree. 🙂 I LOVE thrillers too! All the Missing Girls is on my TBR pile. I’ll have to check out The Twilight Wife, too!
I love to read, but find that I don’t do enough as well. Life catches up with you, and before you know it months have gone by without picking up a book. I’m currently reading To Capture What We Cannot Keep and it’s really good so far!
I really really want to read Into The Water. I need a really good book to read every book that I pick up has not been able to keep my attention.
Girl, I totally get the time commitment thing. What I would have given to have a prof tell me to read for pleasure back in the day. Part time college, two full time jobs, later owned a cleaning business and had a part time bookkeeping job while I did classes. I didn’t read what I wanted for over 8 years…honestly, I love the ten minute idea. My problem is that I’ll stay up for hours doing the “oh, only two more pages until the chapter end…oh, I just have to start the chapter to answer this suspense, oh, just a couple of pages….” yeah. A few of your motivational titles look intriguing, I’ll have to look into them and add to my list! Thanks!
I love reading and always like to get recommendations from others
i love, lOvE, LoVe, readying too and the subtle art just landed in my mailbox yesterday…can’t wait to get started!
I used to sneak a flashlight into my room to keep reading too :). I received a similar tip, but it was to read for 10 minutes each morning. It made a big difference, and made it hard to start getting ready for work! Now, I listen to a lot of audiobooks on my drive.