Let the Summer Reading Season Begin!

So I’ve been using Goodreads for a few years now. Initially, my fantasy for the book sites was organization in virtual and physical realms. I started with LibraryThing and their awesome cat that scans barcodes and automatically enters the book into your library. I thought this would prompt a physical organization of all of my books. It didn’t. I entered about a thousand, maybe a quarter of the collection. Then stopped. And nothing was organized in real life. This was four or five years ago. After petering out, it seemed like all of the cool kids went over to Goodreads. So I went there. Wanting to be a cool kid. Knowing it was unachievable.

I like Goodreads. The interface is great. It is easy to add books. I like the shelf of what I am currently reading to keep me organized an balanced: some fiction, some poetry, some scholarly books, some journals. I like the annual goal for books read and I like making progress to it all year long. I don’t record everything I read there. Somethings I breeze through and it seems too much to add them. Some books I test out and only add them when I know I will finish. I am reading one book right now that I want to drop, but I added it to Goodreads so I feel morally compelled to finish it. Crazy, huh? I should just abandon it, but there is no abandoned designation. Should I just delete it from my list? Mark it a read even though that is a lie? I also don’t want to admit that I don’t like it, that I dropped it. Moral complexity in the social network.

In spite of this anxiety, as I said, I like Goodreads. It makes me curious though about other people’s reading habits. Do you write down everything that you read? Track your reading? Or just read capaciously and worry not about the numbers? Is memory enough for a reader? What happens when we cannot remember?

If that is too deep, I was also thing about what it is like to encounter a new author who you feel will be great. What was it like to read The Bluest Eye when it first came out? Song of Solomon? Sula? I encountered Morrison when she was already recognized as great. What first second or third book have you read lately that made you feel in the presence of Morrison-level greatness?

And what about authors who you love and seem to fall out of favor? What about authors who are forgotten? I was thinking about how much I love Gloria Naylor’s work. The Women of Brewster Place, yes, but Linden Hills and Mama Day. I love her work. What happened to her?

These are my reading reflections as we launch the summer reading season, may yours be filled with books you love.