Non-Thesis Reading

I actually just read a lot. During a low spot in grad school I did a few sessions of therapy and one of the great pieces of advice I got was to take some time for myself and read things I wanted to every day. So I started setting aside an hour a day at lest to read. Since I finished my course work I read quite a bit more than that, even while working on my thesis. In fact I haven’t been very good lately about thesis related reading. There are a couple of things that should read environmental history in my time period mostly. (There is not much New Deal Era environmental history so I’ve been trying to read it all.)

I mostly read novels, still primarily SFF by women. Recently I’ve been reading a lot of memoirs to go along with intense footnoting phase of the thesis. It was nice to have something not related to read and memoirs are easier than the academic non-fiction that maybe I should be reading. Anyways now that I’m done with my draft I started a new agricultural history book.

I’ve gotten into the habit of going to the library once a week. I mostly go to pick up books I’ve put on hold. I’m trying to balance my library book reading with reading books I own. In theory I alternate between the two, but I tend to get worried about due dates, or feel more excited about the library books, so I read more library books than books I own. Maybe I should try for a ratio of two to one.

Also I have been trying to read a piece of short fiction every day. Mostly I read something online. My to read folder still has quite a few stories in it. A also have paper book of stories going Harrowing the Dragon by Patricia A. McKillip. I still love the sense of the numinous her stories give me. I think dipping into it every couple of days is more fun that just reading all the stories back to back.