Making 2017 reading goals

Now that we are experiencing a new year, it is time for a lot of us to make our goals. I have a lot of general goals for my life, but I also have a separate list of goals for my reading life. I have been making reading goals for several years now and although it is super nerdy, these goals have helped me direct my reading life in many different directions. Making the conscious decision to read a diverse set of books has opened my mind. It has also helped me discover many new favorite books. If you are thinking about making some goals for your 2017 reading life, here are my tips:

1. Only make a few.

If you're like me, reading is important, but not always the first priority. I have work, school, and socializing to do. Only after that am I able to focus on my reading. Because of this, I try to make my list of general life goals longer than my reading goals.

2. Be realistic.

One year, I made too many large goals and I wanted to read lots of large, dense books. Remember, there are only 365 days in a year, and you can only use a fraction of that time for reading. If you're unsure of what you're capable of in your reading, start very small and perhaps add some goals by the month. That way, you'll have a better picture of how much you can put into your reading on a daily basis.

3. Be diverse.

After watching the Ted Talk "My Year Reading a Book from Every Country in the World," I came to realize the importance of reading diversely. I believe it's important that we make an effort to purposefully read books by a variety of different people. For a very long time I was only reading books written by people very similar to me. Reading more diversely has helped me understand and empathize with other cultures. It has made me a more adventurous and curious person. Escaping into a world completely different from your own is both an uncomfortable experience and an eye-opening one.

4. Make it about fun and reading experience enhancement.

I try to structure my goals in a way that feeds my love of reading. Setting too many hefty or ambitious goals can turn you off to the thought of reading and put you in a reading slump. Remember, when you are reading, you are visiting new places and meeting new people! If your reading goals make your experience feel like a chore or boring business trip, make your goals lighter.

5. Use social media and/or spreadsheets.

Especially nerdy people may want to take their goals to the next level. I find it very satisfying to look back on the progress I've made over the past year. Last year, I read 25 books and I have it all on record on goodreads.com. I am planning on reading 40 books this year and tracking it again on goodreads. I also will be making a pie chart on Excel so I can see my reading statistics. I'll be tracking the amount of pages I read, how many countries I read from, and genres. In 2018, I may share these statistics with you guys.

It's now time for me to get back to my reading. Stay tuned - my next post will be a list of my actual reading goals! Happy reading.

BOOK REVIEW: The Immortal Life of Henrietta Lacks by Rebecca Skloot

Did you know that the cure and medications for many diseases - including polio, cancer, and STDs, were all developed by scientists studying cells from only one person? Back in the 60's, Henrietta Lacks was a young black mother, and after claiming to have "a knot in my womb," had a cancer sample taken from her cervix and it forever changed medical history.

Henreitta's cells were so special that they were able to continue growing and multiplying after they were removed from her body. Before Henrietta's special cells were discovered, every other tissue sample taken from other people usually died after a few days living in culture.



(Photograph: goodreads.com)

For decades, no one ever knew who Henrietta Lacks was, and neither did they know the affect her cancer cells had on medical research. The author of The Immortal Life of Henrietta Lacks, Rebecca Skloot, wrote a three-part memoir about this woman's life and the affect she had on people around them.

The most interesting thing in the book for me was the way Skloot arranged the plot. She does an intense amount of research - interviewing family, looking up history, searching for medical records, and visiting the places Henrietta lived - and all of this is recorded in the book.

A recurring theme of this story is the idea of ethical research. Henrietta lived in a time where people of color were treated unethically in many ways when it came to medical research. In the story, Henrietta's cells were taken without her permission and she had no idea of what her cancer treatment would do to her. Skloot also brought up the Tuskegee Syphilis Studies, where many black men were experimented on and not informed of certain aspects of the study - aspects that left them dead or dying. This part of the story made me more aware of how far our medical practice has become in this day and age. I am glad Skloot did not shy away from this important topic.

Here is Skloot's website where you are able to learn about the impact of Henrietta Lacks. A movie will be out soon!

Also, check out The Henrietta Lacks Foundation. This website does a lot of charity work for victims of unethical medical research.

My rating: 6/10

Rereading books?

Hey there, everyone! Thanks for stopping by to smell the books.

Today we will be discussing the concept of rereading books. You would think that every book reader would enjoy rereading their favorite books, or come back to a book that they didn't understand too well to better understand it the next time.

Surprisingly, a large amount of readers hardly ever come back to previously read books, even books that they enjoy. Today, though, with the vast amount of reading material we have access to in the world, many readers (including myself) have a love/hate relationship with rereading. We feel as if there are more, better things to read.

Although I have a hard time getting myself to reread books, I do believe that we need to come back to books that we love. Here are three reasons why we should reread our books, despite the ever-growing pile of unread books on our shelf.

1. Quality over Quantity

This is one of the biggest reasons why I try to reread books. I used to have the mindset that reading a lot of books would make me "well-read (whatever that means." I would often read a lot of books but I didn't truly connect with them because I was too busy thinking about the end result. It was hard for me to enjoy books in the present back then. 

When you reread, it's a great way to assess whether or not the book is what's right for you. Rereading the books allow you to spend quality time with it, instead of speeding through the books and not truly comprehend the story.

2. Better Understanding
When rereading anything, from articles to books to rewatching movies, we gain a wider spectrum of understanding about the story. We often run across deeply hidden themes when we first read a story, because we are fixated on the plot. One great movie example is Napoleon Dynamite: You'd never think that the story of nerdy Napoleon living an awkward life in Iowa would have deep meaning and symbols, but if you watch the movie as many times as I have, you'd be surprised to see that there's more than just surface material.

3. There's Something New Every Time

Every time I reread a book, I always find myself highlighting or penciling in the book just as much as I did last time. I make it my goal to reread three of my favorite books every year, and I find that rereading old memories is creating new ones. Each year I am in a new walk of life and have different perspectives on everything. 


"One of the strongest motivations for rereading is purely selfish: it helps you remember what you used to be like. Open an old paperback, spangled with marginalia in a handwriting you outgrew long ago, and memories will jump out with as much vigor as if you’d opened your old diary. These book-memories, says Hazlitt, are “pegs and loops on which we can hang up, or from which we can take down, at pleasure, the wardrobe of a moral imagination, the relics of our best affections, the tokens and records of our happiest hours.” Or our unhappiest. Rereading forces you to spend time, at claustrophobically close range, with your earnest, anxious, pretentious, embarrassing former self, a person you thought you had left behind but who turns out to have been living inside you all along."
― Anne Fadiman, Ex Libris: Confessions of a Common Reader

Here are a few links to other sites that discuss reading:

http://www.intellectualtakeout.org/blog/why-rereading-books-so-important

http://www.readitforward.com/essay/why-reread/

https://www.bustle.com/articles/50770-11-joys-of-re-reading-books-because-starting-over-at-page-1-is-a-feeling-you-cant

Authors of Influence

Hi, readers! I'm glad you've stopped by to smell the books

As a reader, I am constantly on the hunt for a new book. But when I discover a new favorite author, it unlocks so much more. Here is a list of my top 15 favorite authors that I've discovered over the course of my reading life. I've loosely arranged these authors to build up to my favorite.

I've also tried to include a diverse album of authors; authors that write different genres and were from different time periods.

15. Kate DiCamillo
Recommended books written by this author:
The Tiger Rising
Because of Winn-Dixie
The Magician's Elephant

14. Haruki Murakami
Recommended books written by this author:
Colorless Tsukuru Tazaki and His Years of Pilgrimage
Kafka on the Shore
Norwegian Wood

13. Marina Keegan
Recommended books written by this author:
The Opposite of Loneliness

12. Emily St. John Mandel
Recommended books written by this author:
Station Eleven

11. Hannah Kent
Recommended books by this author:
Burial Rites

10. W.H. Auden
Recommended books by this author:
Thank You, Fog poetry collection
And any of his poetry selections

9. Truman Capote
Recommended books by this author:
Breakfast at Tiffany's
In Cold Blood

8. Shirley Jackson
Recommended books by this author:
We Have Always Lived in the Castle
The Lottery (Short story)
The Haunting of Hill House

7. John Green
Recommended books by this author:
The Fault in Our Stars
An Abundance of Katherines
Paper Towns

6. Elizabeth Gaskell
Recommended books by this author:
North and South
Wives and Daughters
Cranford

5. Emily Bronte
Recommended books by this author:
Wuthering Heights
Any of her poetry collections

4. Donna Tartt
Recommended books by this author:
The Secret History
The Goldfinch
The Little Friend

3. George Eliot
Recommended books by this author:
Daniel Deronda
Silas Marner
Middlemarch

2. Mary Shelley
Recommended books by this author:
Frankenstein
The Last Man

1. Neil Gaiman
Recommended books by this author:
American Gods
The Ocean at the End of the Lane
The View from the Cheap Seats

The authors I've listed have had a profound influence on my reading experience and I look up to them. Although some of these authors are deceased, it would be awesome to meet at least a few of these authors in my lifetime.