Reading Rut

Sometimes I get in a reading rut. I can't find anything I want to read. I end up watching TV or surfing the web, aimlessly, instead of reading. Usually when I am in a rut, it means I am stressed about something else. Often it will take me a while to figure out what's really wrong; sometimes it is something I can fix, and sometimes it's not.

It's funny that I find myself in a rut, because as a classroom teacher, I do a lot of teaching about having strategies to maintain a reading life such as having books on deck, revisiting favorites, reading fluff, reading a challenge, revisiting a genre, borrowing a book, getting a recommendation, getting something new, hooking into a genre/author/series, and knowing when to abandon a book.

So recently, I applied these strategies to my own "on deck" list.

Books that have stopped my reading rut or are on deck:

(Rereading a favorite) The Phantom Tollbooth

(Borrowing- now that this is almost overdue at the library, it interests me) Parenting, Inc.

(Revisiting a genre/ Mystery) And Then There Were None

(Recommendation- Thanks, Susan Adamson!) Encyclopedia of an Ordinary Life

(Rereading a favorite, Hooking into a series) Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows

(Reading a Challenge- will need tissues and emotional reserves. This has been on deck for a while.) Ten Thousand Splendid Suns

I think rereading children's novels could count as fluff, but since I am a teacher, it can also be considered professional reading. So keep reading-- because you are what you read! I truly believe that by maintaining our own personal relationship with books (even fluff), we are better able to reach both others and ourselves.