Getting back on the reading wagon

[@Dottiemi]

So great to see you back, we don't even care if you haven't read anything!!😂

[@jacquelinemcmenamin8204]

Jen 🤗So good to see you again. I fully understand about reading. It’s one of the reasons I rely heavily on audiobooks. I listen to lots of radio via BBC Sounds app. Last night I fell asleep listening to In Our Time with Melvyn Bragg.

[@ameliareads589]

Happy to see you back! What usually helps me is playing a little game with myself. I choose three books from my shelf I think I could be in the mood for and then I let someone else pick the one to read for me.

[@JentheLibrarianreads]

This is a brilliant idea, I love it!

[@katiejlumsden]

Hello, hello! Lovely to see you back 😊

[@keithcasey3459]

We missed you Jen!! glad to see your videos again!!

[@JentheLibrarianreads]

Thanks, it feels good to be back.

[@mradcaqbdb]

Well, the books may have sucked, but I’m so glad to see you again! 💜

[@thelefthandedreader6632]

Hi, Jen! We love to see you whenever we do. His was such a delight. When I’m in a dry patch, I turn to an author I know will hit…for me that s Anita Brookner and Trollope.

[@sheltercoordinator8387]

So good to see a video from you! When I'm struggling, I find rereading an old favorite helps me find my love of reading again.

[@JentheLibrarianreads]

I'm always worried that I will end up hating an old favourite with my bad attitude because I'm grumpy about not being able to read!

[@scallydandlingaboutthebook2711]

Lovely to see you. Sometimes a break is just the thing. Study can suck some of the joy out of reading for pleasure alone. Hope you hit something that works really well for you next.

[@joy_ofbooks]

I may have let out a small cheer when I saw this video appear in my Subscriptions! I’m so glad you feel you’re finding a bit of your mojo back after your “dry patch” (😂). I hope you’re able to find books that you love as you read more. LOVE the dress you wore in the underground library!

[@JentheLibrarianreads]

Thanks - I bought that dress to wear to a wedding, and thankfully it works for sitting in a library too 😂

[@bookofdust]

Wonderful to see you and thanks for sharing that dungeon library footage, at least it looks like it alleviates all distractions as long as you don’t have an irrational fear of being crushed in compact shelving as I seem to have! David Sedaris is my get out of reading slump free card. It’s about size, usually the essays are short enough to get me reading and carried away and reading more and more, like potato chips, or in your case crisps! And if they are too long, now that there’s two volumes of the diary out, they are in even smaller bites.

[@JentheLibrarianreads]

I do quite like studying underground, no windows to stare out of, and hardly any other people to distract me. Sometimes I need that to focus myself.

[@curatoriallyyours]

Welcome back!

[@BookishTexan]

Lovely to see you. Thanks for taking us to the school underground library. It has helped destroy my overly romantic notions of studying at a UK University.🤓

[@JentheLibrarianreads]

To be fair to the poor underground library, it used to be the book tunnel that connected the two libraries above ground, which are both pretty and old (if you search for Duke Humfrey's Library, that's a bit of what was above where I was studying....and I still chose to go into the modern underground windowless bit 😂😂)

[@SupposedlyFun]

I was so excited to see a video from you in my feed! I read One Last Song back in February and had very similar feelings about it. It was just okay. And by now, most of the details have slipped from my mind, so I don't even remember the last chapter at all. 😂 My usual trick for getting out of a dry patch/slump was to retreat to read a mystery, but then I stopped reading so many of those. But the idea was that you could get something under your belt and hopefully, that alone would get some momentum going. Now it's a bit trickier. I have to find a book that suits my mood perfectly. I really struggled in January until I stumbled on a Barbara Pym novel in a used book shop. I didn't love the book itself, but the gossipy social commentary helped me regain enthusiasm for reading.

[@JentheLibrarianreads]

I found your review afterwards, and only then remembered you talking about it, and I'd obviously completely forgotten because I assumed I would never read it so I pushed it out of my mind 😂

[@SupposedlyFun]

@@JentheLibrarianreads 🤣🤣

[@PageTurnersWithKatja]

Hi Jen, good to see you back :) Dry patch might not be the best substitute 😂

[@JentheLibrarianreads]

I really need to think of a better term, that doens't sound quite so grim 😂

[@ameliabarlowbooks]

a moment of appreciation for that gorgeous mint green cardigan! LOVE IT 💚 as you know, I've been struck by the same reading curse since early Spring and also slowly finding ways to engage with books again - I'm nervous to come back to BookTube until I've found my flow though because I do feel like one thing influences the other at this point, like I've built a hobby on a hobby? maybe I should just stop overthinking, turn the camera on and hope the reading follows. great to see you! ♥

[@JentheLibrarianreads]

M&S sell the best cardigans 💚

[@JentheLibrarianreads]

I know what you mean about being nervous to come back, I was too. I definitely overthought it for too long before I just had a word with myself and realised it was okay to come back having read nothing at the start of filming.

[@actual-spinster]

rly enjoyed this & good to see u back !! nadezdha in the dark sounds great, i think it might already be on my tbr but if not will put it on there!!

[@JentheLibrarianreads]

I think you'd really enjoy it - it's definitely worth a read.

[@BookishAdventuresInWellbeing]

Great to see you Jen. This really tickled me! Hope the reading (insert word other than slump here) passes soon.

[@CharlieBrookReads]

❤❤❤

[@joelharris4399]

Life happens when we are busy making plans. So, whatever had you preoccupied earlier this year, I'm sure there's a perfectly valid explanation for your, in the grand scheme of things, rather fleeting disappearance on the information superhighway. Just goes to show how maintaining a KZbin book channel, which has an implicit objective of keeping up with the Joneses in the bourgeois literary community, where trends and fads are n Brownian motion, is not really sustainable in the long run. That said, WELCOME BACK and happy summer

[@marjoriedybec3450]

I pick a book that contains information I really want to know. Since you are a scholar, I think that should be quite easy for you. Let's say you grew up on Indigo Girls. Maybe there is a memoir or biography. Let's say you love Paris. You could read Paris, My Sweet (a fluffy book written about an american journalist's years working in Paris and discovering its sweets. I read Miracle and Wonder (an interview book between Malcolm Gladwell and Paul Simon) during a slump. I also read a load of classics when nothing else will grab me. When faced with doom-scrolling, pop media (tv music and movies), you tube channels or reading, if I'm stressed or tired, books rarely win, unless I WANT what they are offering. I love books about Shakespeare--most classic writers, actually. I just read The Secret Sisterhood about the literary friendships of four famous female writers. I'm a sucker for books about artists or art movements too. Art of this Century, the autobiography of Peggy Guggenheim is one of my all time favorites. Ninth Street Women is a tome but is FANTASTIC too. Contemporary novels come later--unless I need comps for the novel I'm writing. Anyway, you'll be devouring books by the dozen in no time. You don't need my advice. Welcome back. Hopefully school is going or went well. marjorieapple.substack.com

[@jenniferlovesbooks]

Hi Jen! How lovely to see you again. This has brightened up my Sunday evening 😊 If I'm slumpy, I try some short stories or reread a favourite. Failing that, I just keep trying books and dnfing them until I find one that I want to read!

[@emeline_4]

This was lovely! Book boxes sound fun. I totally get that feeling after a slump (oops) of thinking "These weren't particularly successful, but I read them, what an amazing feeling!" Sometimes it's mostly about the activity and not the rating 😄 (well, except for stuff that reaaaally sucks 😆)

[@emeline_4]

Classic answer but when I've had times where I found it hard to read, I liked to re-read some comforting favourites of mine (mainly classics). Other things that have worked are switching up the format (like, relying more on audiobooks, with the peak tactic being a combo of the first method and this one, where I listen to an audio version of a book I love but have only read physically lol), or picking up shorter books.

[@JentheLibrarianreads]

I think you're right, sometimes it's just about the act of sitting down and finishing a book that can get you back into the reading habit, even if it wasn't a good book.

[@JentheLibrarianreads]

I normally switch to audiobooks, but I've been so distracted by podcasts recently, that they have been taking up all the time that I would normally save for audiobooks.

[@emeline_4]

@@JentheLibrarianreads that totally makes sense to me because I had the opposite thing where I involuntarily stopped listening to podcasts when I really got into audiobooks 😆

[@josie8997]

I hadn't read anything since feburary (I stopped right in the middle of "notes of a crocodile" despite enjoying it) until last week when I completely out of nowhere decided to pick up Matt Cain's "The Secret Life of Albert Entwistle" which i read in three days and enjoyed so much I took it to work with me. Since then I've wanted to read but have no idea what to pick up or what I'm in the mood for 😅. One Last Song sounds right up my alley! And also like it'll give me the one thing I missed in secret life: actual interaction between the two men. But after that review I'm not so sure if I want to read it 😅

[@RPMarland]

Good to see you back. My partner and I read between 8 and 9 each night, so we don’t have a chance to get in a slump. Obviously, because we’re human, we don’t always stick to it, but if we miss it for any reason we just get 10 minutes in. I also don’t hold myself to reading a book: if there’s a paper I want to read, I just read that and get back to whatever book I’m reading the next night.

[@JentheLibrarianreads]

I really love this idea, of setting aside time to read absolutely anything - I think I need to try this.

[@mojimoji5368]

"speaking of lesbians................ book post!!" 🤣🤣

[@JentheLibrarianreads]

My book post is usually lesbian related to be fair 😂 😂

[@mojimoji5368]

@@JentheLibrarianreads Fair enough🤣 It was great to have a video from you, and I look forward to the next!

[@RovingReader]

Haha sisters or actually... LESBIANS! 🤫 Yeah, your hair is MUCH longer than the last time I saw you on here. Haha you're dead inside?!!