July has been a month for comfort reads. Cozy books, where nothing really bad happens. I’ve had enough of grief and loss, death and despair in real life, with the passing of my beloved cat, Loki at the start of the month. I couldn’t bear it in my fiction too.

So I wrapped myself up in simple, cozy stories of charmed books, the magic of small communities, romance amid magical geographical disasters, and the unraveling of a centuries old fairy curse.

Do you read when you are stressed and anxious, your mind racing over a myriad possibilities, most of them bleak, bereft of hope? And if you do, what kinds of books do you like to read during such times? Do you seek to escape into a different world? Or do you just need some words on a page to engage your brain so that it isn’t obsessively worrying about something?

This month, I discovered which kind of reader I am.

April seems to have lasted forever! The mercury’s rising, and with it, so has my desire to enclose myself in an air conditioned room with good books for company. And boy, have I read some really interesting books this month — across genres. My favorite fantasy genre features strongly this month, along with contemporary fiction, a cozy mystery, and a collection of short stories.

There are some books that demand your attention. That ask to be read slowly, as you mull over the words, and in that slowing down, connections are made — to thoughts that have been hidden away in the dusty corners of your mind, to ideas gleaned from other books, other sources.

When books like these come along, you no longer care about meeting arbitrary reading goals or worry that you’ve fallen behind in your reading. You just immerse yourself in the words and ideas in front of you, and let everything else fall away.

February has been brutal on the health front. The husband and I took turns with the viral, and just as we recovered, I came down with an allergic cough from hell.

All the momentum I had gained in January came to a crashing halt. All the projects I had lined up for this month went on the backburner. Looking at my project tracking database on Notion makes me want to weep.

But, I remind myself, there’s always next month. Once I have my allergies under control, I can pick up where I left off. It’s no wonder then that it’s been a slightly slower reading month, too. I did read a few interesting books, though, including two for the Book Bingo challenge.

It’s a brand new year, so let’s talk goals!

I usually set a reading goal on Goodreads — my goal for this year is 40 books. It’s been set at 40 books since a couple of years, actually, even though I usually end up reading a lot more than that.

This year, I thought I’d bump that number up to 50, but I immediately felt anxious about it, so back down to 40 it went. After all, there’s no point in stressing yourself out over something that you enjoy doing!

December has been a stellar reading month. I look at my Notion books tracker in amazement, counting and re-counting the number of books I’ve read. 8 books, a 9th in progress, and a 10th almost finished. By the time the month, and the year, ends, I would have read 10 books during the month! Even I’m not quite sure how that happened!