Spotlight Sunday: Good Reads

I big shout-out to my friend, Maria, for pointing me to the Good Reads website.  Since 2006, I have kept a simple Microsoft Word document of the books I have read.  But two days ago, I started to really take a look at Good Reads and realized what a great set-up it is!  it allows you to track books you have read, are reading or wish to read.  You can give them a rating or review as well.  And then you can connect with friends there to see what books they are reading and how they have rated them.  Currently, Maria is my only friend, but I hope others will join and share their books with me!

Just a few beneficial things that came from entering my books into Good Reads:

1. I forced myself to think back through 2002 (I decided to start the year Joe and I got married) of all the books I have read in that time but that I hadn’t written down.  I am sure I missed a lot and wrote some down in the wrong years, but it was neat to think back on all the books I had enjoyed (or maybe hadn’t)!

2. I saw that before I started making a plan for what I wanted to read at the beginning of the year (I started to plan my books for the year in 2007), I struggled to have variety.  I either read a lot of just one author or one genre of book.  And that typically didn’t help me to be a well-rounded person.  For example, when I was pregnant with Abby and right afterwards, all I was reading was parenting-type books.  In looking back this certainly wasn’t my strongest time spiritually or as a wife.

3. I did my least amount of reading right after having Abby.  Adjustment to caring for a little one caused a big drop in reading for me (or maybe my memory is just so foggy due to adjusting to the lack of sleep!).  This definitely taught me to keep an eye on my reading in times of transition.

Feel free to look at my books, ask about any I have read or join and become my reading buddy!