{"id":6113,"date":"2015-02-01T15:07:30","date_gmt":"2015-02-01T21:07:30","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/deansanta.com\/blog\/?p=6113"},"modified":"2015-02-01T20:46:23","modified_gmt":"2015-02-02T02:46:23","slug":"cover-to-cover","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"http:\/\/deansanta.com\/blog\/2015\/02\/01\/cover-to-cover\/","title":{"rendered":"Cover to Cover"},"content":{"rendered":"

Sometimes I read for pleasure, but I’ve never been the most consistently voracious reader. My reading patterns\u00a0can pretty accurately described as\u00a0“feast or famine.” Once I find a book I enjoy, I can’t stop myself and tend to gorge\u00a0on words rather\u00a0quickly. Lines, pages, chapters, and sections fly by, and the next thing I know, I’m fully immersed in a whole other world. But in between these reading binges, I’ll go months without picking up a book.<\/p>\n

I’ve tried (not very hard) to make it a priority to read before\u00a0bed time, but my bad habit of surfing the internet before sleeping has been pretty hard to kick.\u00a0What normally\u00a0turns on the “bookworm” switch in my brain are times when I feel like I have nothing better to do. For example, there’s literally<\/em> nothing better to do when you’re on a bus or train every day. Commuting to school or work via public transportation have been the best of times in my own personal literacy. These days, though, I’m driving for an hour or so to work every day and that requires my full attention. I’ve tried audiobooks, with some success, but for the most part, I’d much rather listen\u00a0to some music (and sing along sometimes) or listen to a one hour, neatly-wrapped-up\u00a0podcast to entertain me or teach me new things.<\/p>\n

Lately I’ve noticed that what\u00a0helps to get me into a book is priming myself with an interest in the genre (historically, I’ve been more of a sci-fi and fantasy reader, but I’m always open to different types of stories).\u00a0A few months ago Lauren lent me her copy of Gone Girl<\/em> to read. She said that she had gotten a quarter of the way through the book and just couldn’t get into it. I felt the same way. I labored with connecting to it\u00a0and put it down a few times, forgetting again and again to try read it. Recently, I listened to the first season of the\u00a0Serial\u00a0<\/em>podcast and watched the first season of Broadchurch<\/em> on TV. With murder-crime \/ drama on the brain, one night I just started reading Gone Girl<\/em> again, and something clicked… I was able to break through that previous block and finished it a day or two later! My review of Gone Girl? It was good, suspenseful, and surprising. Lauren and I watched the movie last night and it translates pretty closely to the text. I would recommend it… just don’t take two or three months to get through it like I did. It should really only take a day or two.<\/p>\n

What’s next to read? I’m not sure, but what usually\u00a0draws me to a book is a good\u00a0recommendation from a friend. I’ve got a long list of books that I’ve heard are great that I’ve been meaning to read… Four years ago, my friend Sam had strongly recommended his favorite book, Anna Karenina, to me. It’s currently collecting digital dust, on the Kindle Paperwhite\u00a0that\u00a0I bought myself after one of those summers full of reading on the train. And two years ago, my friend Alex recommended some Sci-Fi short stories\u00a0(the\u00a0Wool<\/em>\u00a0series) that I still need to check out. Wool is pretty close to making it onto my Kindle bookshelf. Hopefully writing a post about reading will make me want to read more. And maybe someday\u00a0I’ll be able to permanently switch on my\u00a0“reading mode” and bite chunks off of\u00a0that long “to read” list.<\/p>\n

\"harry_potter_paperback_set\"
\n<\/a>Confession: I didn’t read Harry Potter until college. That I missed out on important parts of some of my friends’\u00a0childhoods is a recurring theme in my life.<\/div>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Sometimes I read for pleasure, but I’ve never been the most consistently voracious reader. My reading patterns\u00a0can pretty accurately described as\u00a0“feast or famine.” Once I find a book I enjoy, I can’t stop myself and tend to gorge\u00a0on words rather\u00a0quickly. Lines, pages, chapters, and sections fly by, and the next thing I know, I’m fully … Continue reading Cover to Cover<\/span> →<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[362],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-6113","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-journal"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"http:\/\/deansanta.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/6113","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"http:\/\/deansanta.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"http:\/\/deansanta.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/deansanta.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/deansanta.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=6113"}],"version-history":[{"count":19,"href":"http:\/\/deansanta.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/6113\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":6145,"href":"http:\/\/deansanta.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/6113\/revisions\/6145"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"http:\/\/deansanta.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=6113"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/deansanta.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=6113"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/deansanta.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=6113"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}