Let’s do the #BookTalk

On By MeghaIn Book Talk

I read around 36 books in 2016.

It’s a score I’m rather proud of because I have never read so many (non-academic) titles in a year before. Encouraged by this mini-success, I decided to read or rather try to read even more books in 2017.

“A book is like a key that fits into the tumbler of the soul. The two parts have to match in order for each to unlock. Then—click—a world opens.” ~ Brad Kessler

In my urge to make it happen, I enrolled myself for the GoodReads reading challenge and decided that I should read at least 50 books in 2017. At the start of the New Year, this goal looked perfectly achievable (as it does look even now because I haven’t lost the mojo) but as I stepped into April, something shifted in me and I made some major changes in my reading pattern.

To start with, I stopped worrying too much about my reading score. This applies to the number of books I’d read as part of the reading challenges, I’m part of. It wasn’t cause I feared not being able to complete the challenge or because I was lagging behind. Instead, because I feel that reading is primarily for personal growth, education, and learning. How many books I read has no bearing on what I aim to achieve by reading books.

In the quest of reading more and more books, I was missing out on a few other goals I’d set for myself this year. I had hoped to review more books than ever before, simply because book reviews have been helping me read more attentively, I feel responsible for presenting my takeaways from the book in a more open-minded, and balanced way.

This calls for investing a lot of time in drafting the reviews and when time plays a limiting factor (like it always does) I am left with a number of books that I read in the past month or so but couldn’t find the time talk about.

Besides, I was not picking up a new book right after finishing one for the fear of losing my initial thoughts of the book I’d recently finished. Adding to this chaos was my inability to review the much-celebrated books because either a lot had already been written about them earlier or I found myself incapable of reviewing those masterpieces.

Re-reading the favorite parts of the books I’d read earlier was no longer happening. Simply because I had been pushing myself to outdo my reading performance. To help achieve this without slowing down my reading pace, I have made a reading list choosing light reads to go in between the heavy books that call for a lot of thinking and no rushing.

I was missing out on recording my personal experiences, the emotions, thoughts and my takeaways (not limiting to the favorite quotes or parts of the book) from the variety of books I have been reading. Though I do share them in every book review I post, but lately, my book reviews have been longer than 1000 words, which can make the reader impatient (though I’d like to think otherwise but let’s be honest) and hurriedly scroll straight to the rating at the end.

Besides, I don’t intend to bombard my blog-readers with too many book reviews. Since this is a personal blog, I believe the readers would be more interested in the slivers of my personal life than mere details of the books I’ve read.

At the core of it all, I am a slow reader who likes to read, contemplate, picture and repeat the cycle. This makes reading an important aspect of my life because I am often left craving to note those emotions on my blog to revisit at a later date, but in the lack of an accompanying book review, that somehow never happens.

This is why, after much thought, I am starting a new series on my blog ~ The #BookTalk

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Wikipedia defines book talk as,

“A book talk in the broadest terms is what is spoken with the intent to convince someone to read a book.”

However, I aim to do something different.

The book talk on my blog is going to be a regular monthly feature where I shall be posting my personal experiences and/or the takeaways from the book(s) I have been reading.

These experiences won’t be limited to book reviews (which shall continue to be a part of this blog) but would include anecdotes about how I heard about the book, why I chose to read a particular book, what parts of the book struck a chord, how could I personally relate to the events in the plot, how the book(s) inspired or changed me and (m)any other interesting aspects of my personal reading experience.

“What is it with you and that book?”
“We have a personal relationship.” ― Benjamin Alire Sáenz

Like the sound of it? Then let’s do it together.

If you’d like to join me in this celebration of the joy of reading, please feel free to link to the series your (new) posts of personal reading experiences that are about any book(s) of your choice.

Paste the image the image in your blog post, link it to this post and use the hashtag #BookTalk.

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Please do tag me when sharing your posts on social media to help me locate and share them further

Most importantly, don’t forget to leave links to your posts in the comments.

Let’s get personal with the books and share our reading experiences to strengthen our bond with these treasures of wisdom and learning.

Are you ready for the #BookTalk?

24 thoughts on “Let’s do the #BookTalk”

  1. Mithila Menezes

    Yay! I’m all up for #BookTalk. I manage to get both the personal view and book review into one post. Mainly because I believe in adding a personal touch to every review, and also because I believe that if a reader wants a review, they are more likely to trust Good Reads than me. 😀

    I too have set 50 books for 2017. I’ve managed around 30 till now. But yes, I agree with your view that it does get a bit tough when you want to review a book too. I have to read a book really slowly and properly before I feel confident enough to review it. I can’t use my super fast reading speed then 🙈

    Liked by 1 person

    1. Awesomesauce!
      I hear you Mithila, book reviews call for careful reading and noting points that can further slow down an already slow reader like me.
      I can’t wait to read your posts and the anecdotes of your life as a bibliophile.
      Let’s do this!

      Like

  2. thewordsgetacanvas

    Wow , throughout my growing up years until job happened , I loved reading . Sadly that has taken a complete backseat for the last decade and I am absolutely not happy about it . Your post brings many memories and hopefully soon enough I can tag myself as an avid reader again . Will write about it soon .

    Liked by 1 person

        1. So glad you joined in the #BookTalk. I enjoyed reading your connection with the evergreen classic – Great Expectations. I bought the e-book version of this book a couple of months ago that is yet waiting to be read, maybe I shall read it sometime soon 🙂

          Thank you for the tagging. Just wondering if you’re on Twitter, I’d be happy to tag you cause that’s where I usually share all blog posts I enjoy reading. You can find me at @theerailivedin

          Looking forward to reading more reading memories on your blog 🙂

          Like

  5. Hey ME! Thats a great idea. I happen to be a voracious reader. I read everday, especially before sleeping. But I never write about it. If I really like a book, I gift it to my friends, who I know will enjoy it. That’s it.
    But your booktalk sounds like fun. I shall try to follow it 🙂

    Liked by 1 person

    1. I am not a voracious reader, but lately, I have been trying to read every day, even if it means just a couple of pages. I love your thoughtfulness of gifting the books you love to the people whom you think will enjoy reading them.

      I am hoping to do one #bookTalk post per month and am really trying to talk about the books that hold a special place in my life for reasons beyond their plots.

      It’ll be wonderful if you too could join in (whenever you get the time) cause as far as talking about interesting books, the more book lovers unite the better.

      What say?

      Like

  6. Congratulations on completing the challenge! And I’m sure you’d be able to complete this year as well. I took up the challenge last year and failed miserably. This year I haven’t taken up the challenge but I am trying to read more than usual. Let’s see how it goes!

    Cheers

    Liked by 1 person

    1. Good Luck with your reading Geetika.

      Since you share my love for books, I’d love to invite you to talk about the books closest to you as part of the #BookTalk series. There’s no pressure of posting often, you can do that at your own pace (at the moment, I’m aiming at once a month) it’ll be wonderful exploring your connection with the books through the titles close to you.

      Thank you for the warm wishes ❤

      Like

  7. Obsessivemom

    That’s a fabulous idea. I love to read stories about the books almost as much as I like to read the books themselves. I’m in for sure.

    Liked by 1 person

    1. Fantastic!
      I can’t wait to read your #BookTalk posts because I am sure I’ll have some amazing book recommendations given how much your thoughts resonate with mine ❤

      Like

  8. I have the same experiences with reading and reviewing books. I used to read a lot. Such was the number that sometimes I forgot whether I read that book or not. If the book seemed familiar, I used to think I watched a movie inspired from it. You know, most Hollywood movies are book adaptations. Well, it took me 3 such incidences to gather my senses. Now, I have a blog where I post reviews. My reviews are 200-word synopsis of how I felt after reading the book. On second thought, review is not even an appropriate term to describe it.

    BookTalk looks like a great way to indulge book lovers. I would love to be a part of it if time permits. Let me finish the book I am reading these days and I would join all you guys.

    Liked by 1 person

    1. Though am a member of the GoodReads from a long time, I often fail to note the books I’ve read or to update books on my TBR list. Quite like you, when I lived close to a wonderful public library, I used to read a lot of books, which I can’t recall even by seeing their covers. So I can totally understand where you’re coming from.

      It’ll be wonderful if you could join in the #BookTalk. Please take your own time as there are no limitations on when you need to publish the post. Though I’m hoping to stick to the once a month schedule myself.

      Like

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  10. shanayatales

    It’s like you pulled all those thoughts right from my mind and put it on paper (or in this case, your blog). The read-review conundrum is real. I can easily read 50 books a year, if I did not have to review them as well.

    And yes, I understand that technically I don’t ‘have to’ review them, but I do want to. It helps me articulate my thoughts & remember the books (and the experience) long after I have finished reading them.

    It’s something I constantly struggle with. So if this is one more way of talking about books, count me in, as we can never have enough of those.

    Liked by 1 person

    1. I love your book reviews for their balanced views and honesty.

      It’ll be wonderful to have you join in the #BookTalk for I’d love to know what all goes on in your mind while reading books and which books, in particular, are closest to you and why.

      I shall be looking forward to your posts 🙂

      Liked by 1 person

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