Random thoughts...

[Martin]

Merry Christmas from Christmas Land!

Christmas Land.jpg

[Sock Monkey]

Merry Christmas, Happy Holidays to all and Sundry!! Two Xmas Favorites, a 1st edition Grinch, 1957, we were born the same year LOL!! Our kid's first Christmas book. We bought it in 1981, my son was born in 1982.
[ATTACH=CONFIG]20342[/ATTACH]

Awesome books!

[Brian861]

Love it!

[Theli]

A bit late now, but Merry Christmas and happy holidays to everyone!

[Brian861]

A bit late now, but Merry Christmas and happy holidays to everyone!

To you and yours as well, Dan!

[mhatchett]

Happy New Year! May you all have a booktastic year, filled with finds, deals and fun!

[jeffingoff]

HAPPY NEW YEAR! May you all collect without regret!

[Brian861]

Happy New Year!

[Martin]

new year vintage pinup hollywood ann miller.jpg

[Tommy]

Happy New Year everyone!!!

[Theli]

I hope everyone had a great New Year's Eve and started the year right!

[subie09lega]

I'm tardy....Happy January 3rd.

[TJCams]

Is there such a thing as "reader's block"?

I also posted on the horrorlit reddit:

Obviously, everyone knows about writer's block, where an author will get to a point where they just have to stop.

The reason for my question is this... I have been building a decent sized book collection (many are special edition, signed, etc.). Most of the books I have are ones that I would likely donate or trade at a couple of my local book shops. My main genre for reading is horror, with sci-fi second, and then pretty much anything (science, hockey bios the main ones).

Here is what I am finding lately. I am generally a slow reader to begin with, but I find that it's taking me long than usual to read the books that I have, and get really indecisive when it comes to what to read next. I am really find it hard to thoroughly get into reading lately. I find I get distracted, or just maybe have had a bad run of books I am choosing? My wife even said to me that she noticed it's been a while since I've really got into the book I was reading.

Has anyone here ever really got to a point where you needed a break from reading?

I have other hobbies, especially this time of year (hockey - playing and watching my team on TV), as well as a thing called married life that takes up a lot of time, as well as other issue with our daughter which have been discussed on here before. Reading, especially horror and related works, have always been a type of escape from the mundane everyday thing called reality.

[TacomaDiver]

My 2017 reading was like that - I got burnt out.

My reading totals increased every year for the most part from 2011 (the "beauty" of a long daily commute via train):

2011: 35
2012: 42
2013: 63
2014: 70
2015: 112
2016: 86
2017: 47

My commute did change in 2017, but even the time I spent reading before bed seemed to suffer. I needed that break. Books weren't exciting me like they were before. Maybe I was in a rut from reading the same kinds of books because I wasn't devouring them like I used to.

I'm hoping to pick back up this year, but I'm not sure I will, so I set my Goodreads goal to 50 to make it more manageable (I hope.)

[Theli]

I definitely believe in "Readers Block". I've gone years with hardly reading a book. I'd pick some up and just have to abandon them, not because they were bad, but because I just wasn't into it at the time.

It hasn't happened to me in a while though, and I have to say taking public transportation helps with that. I get roughly an hour or so of reading each day just on the bus. I do get a kind of genre block, if you will. I read too much of one kind of book or author and I just can't do anymore. For example a couple years ago I was bingeing some fantasy books and I just hit a wall and couldn't finish the one I was on. Could hardly even get into actually. Picked up some hard boiled fiction and crime novels and a month or two later I finished off the fantasy series I'd started prior.