272. Building and Maintaining a Reading Habit

[music]

Sarah Wendell: Hello, and welcome to episode number 272 of Smart Podcast, Trashy Books. I’m Sarah Wendell from Smart Bitches, Trashy Books. With me today are Elyse and Amanda, and we’re talking about building and maintaining a reading habit, by which we mean the habit of regular reading. We discuss reading as a method of self-care and a ritual of restorative practice and the practical and nonessential things that get in the way of reading time. We start by talking about listening to audiobooks in the Starbucks drive-through and the challenges of heroines who need to be redeemed (instead of the hero, for example). And then we move into discussing the various ways in which each of us approaches our reading time. We talk about the ways in which we read and consume stories and how our pets help us out with that purpose. We also talk about some of the things that get in the way, such as the expectation that we should be working all the time and other work culture fallacies. I’m guessing that this is something that some of you might also be able to relate to.

And as a special bonus, we have a guest interview at the end: my ten-year-old son Moose (not his real name, actually) was very excited to talk about this when I mentioned what I was recording. He wanted to join in, so we learn about how fifth graders build reading habits as well – at least my fifth grader, not all of them; just the one.

But I have to ask, once you’ve listened, if you would like to tell us about your reading habits and how you encourage your own reading time, we would really love to hear from you. You can email us at [email protected], or you can record a voice memo and email it to me. A few of you have sent audio files. You sound terrific, and it’s so cool to hear your voices, so please don’t be afraid to do that. Or if you just want to call and leave a message, you can call us at 1-201-371-3272, but I would love to hear how you build and maintain your own reading habits and how you encourage your reading time, or defend your reading time, if you – [laughs] – as the case may be.

Today’s podcast is brought to you by Dreamlands by Felicitas Ivey, the first of a book series found at DSP Publications. It’s a series filled with danger, monsters, and love, with our heroes struggling towards their Happily Ever After. True love will win out after it, you know, goes through the wringer once or twice. The Trust and its battle-hardened recruits are fighting a horrific war, a war between the humans of this world and the demons of the Dreamlands. In this shadowy battle, Keno Inuzaka is merely a pawn: first an innocent bystander imprisoned and abused by the Trust, then a captive of a demon oni when taken to the Dreamlands. But oni Samojirou Aboshi treats the human with unexpected care and respect, and the demon only just earns Keno’s trust when a team from the Trust arrives to exploit Dreamlands magic. As the war spreads across both worlds, Keno is torn between them. If he survives, he faces a decision: go home, carve out a new life under the thumb and watchful eye of the Trust, or stay in the Dreamlands and find freedom in love. You can find more about Dreamlands by Felicitas Ivey at the podcast entry at smartbitchestrashybooks.com/podcast and at DSP Publications. I will have links to both in the podcast show notes.

Now, we do not have a transcript sponsor for this episode, but of course there will be a transcript, because I try to transcribe every episode, but if you would like to sponsor a transcript for a future podcast, you should totally email me at [email protected]. You can talk about your book, you can talk about a boxed set, you can talk about whatever you want. Etsy store? Gift guides? Things you make, things you like? I would love to have you, and sponsoring the transcript is a very unique opportunity, plus I know so many people love reading the transcripts. So if you are a transcript reader, thank you!

I do have a compliment this week. I love the compliments each week! This compliment is for Alana M.:

If you think when you go outside that birds are watching you, they totally are! They have realized that you are among the finest of humans and are studying how great you are, so keep it up.

If you would like a fine, handcrafted, locally sourced compliment, heartfelt from yours truly, please have a look at patreon.com/SmartBitches. Your support of the show helps make it more gooder each week, helps me commission transcripts for older episodes, and there’s a bunch of fun rewards that I really had a lot of, really had a lot of fun, had a really good time putting them together. So have a look: patreon.com/SmartBitches.

And if that isn’t an option, if you tell a friend, subscribe, leave a review for the podcast, all of these things are enormously helpful. Most of all, the fact that you’re listening right now? Extremely helpful, so thank you for being here.

The music you’re listening to is provided by Sassy Outwater. I will have information at the end of the podcast as to who this is and where you can buy it.

Plus, I’ve been ending each podcast with a terrible joke, and I enjoy that way too much!

I’ll have links to all the books and things we discuss in this episode as well, but now, it’s time to talk about reading with Elyse and Amanda. On with the podcast.

[music]

Elyse: In order to be awake enough for this, Rich ran to Starbucks this morning and got me a venti iced coffee, and he’s listening to, I think it’s the Grimspace book, and he said the minute the guy opened the window to hand him his coffee, a sex scene comes on, and he’s got it really loud on the car stereo –

[Laughter]

Elyse: – and he’s like, he’s like, I just casually reach over to turn it down, rather than just, like, frantically slapping at the volume control.

Amanda: Did he make eye contact with the barista while he did that?

Elyse: [Laughs] He did. I’m sure he did –

Sarah: Hello there.

Elyse: – knowing my husband.

Sarah: That is hilarious, and I’m so impressed! How is he liking Grimspace?

Elyse: So far, he’s really liking it. He was telling a friend of his – they share an Audible account, so they had this, like, lengthy conversation about it yesterday, about the difference between, like, grimspace and, I don’t know, hyperspace or –

Sarah: Yeah.

Elyse: – whatever. I don’t know. They went down a sci-fi rabbit hole.

Amanda: Was that the Ann Aguirre book? Isn’t that what I’m thinking of?

Sarah: Yes, that’s the Ann Aguirre book. I think there, I want to say there are six of them.

Amanda: I think I read the first one –

Elyse: No, he’s really liking it.

Sarah: Yeah, I read the first one a long time ago too. I’m really glad. It’s, it’s weird; it’s like there’s a little spate of science, science fiction romances, and then they sort of dwindle for a bit, and then they all come back, and then they sort of dwindle, and then they all come back, and it’s, it’s really interesting when you can recommend a bunch of them. The good thing about science fiction is that there’s usually a series, so it’s not just one.

Amanda: Yes.

Elyse: Yeah. He really likes space opera, but he likes books that are more character driven?

Sarah: Mm-hmm.

Elyse: And a lot of space opera, I think, turns into, like, please read the next twenty pages that explain –

Sarah: Ugh.

Elyse: – how our hyperdrive works, and he’s like, I don’t, I don’t care; I’m willing to just trust that it works and be in this world –

Sarah: Yep.

Elyse: – and I, I want to read, like, character-driven books.

Sarah: Yep.

Elyse: Which I think is why he has, you know, really turned out to like romance, like specific subgenres of romance, because it is all character-driven.

Sarah: Yep. And, and it’s really kind of boring for me to read a book where all of this plot happens, and the characters are just basically navigating it in a state of emotional stasis. Like, nothing changes; there’s no real arc for them. It’s –

Elyse: Right.

Sarah: – the situation around them has changed drastically, but they either don’t need to or don’t have to change, and I’m like, this is boring as hell.

Amanda: Yes.

Elyse: Yep.

Sarah: Like, everybody has to grow up in my books. That’s the requirement. We all have to find some level of adult pants and put them on! I mean, you can take ‘em off, ‘cause this is romance.

Amanda: So, I’m doing NaNo this year, and –

Sarah: Go, Amanda, go!

Amanda: [Laughs] I mean, I’m behind, but I’m treating it like an experiment to see what works for me as a writer, so I’m not really putting a lot of pressure on myself. But –

Sarah: External accountability is very influential.

Amanda: Yeah! But I had a nice moment with Eric the other day, ‘cause he wanted to know what it’s about, and I was, like, two beers in, and I didn’t want to, like, explain it –

Sarah: [Laughs]

Amanda: – ‘cause I feel like a big nerd when I try to explain my book, but I, I give the plot description, and he says very thoughtfully, he’s like, do you think people will like the heroine, ‘cause she did such a horrible thing early on? Can she redeem herself? I was like, yes! You’ve got it! You’ve got it right! Yes, it’s the whole point! She has to redeem herself!

Sarah: Ohhh!

Amanda: [Laughs] So, in – yes.

Sarah: That’s adorable!

Amanda: So, normally, like, the hero is the one with the redemption arc, but in this one, the heroine is the one with the redemption arc. And he caught it, and it made me so proud.

Sarah: I’m very impressed!

Amanda: [Laughs]

Sarah: I also think it’s very interesting how in romance we are very accepting of absolutely dastardly heroes that can be redeemed, but for a lot of readers, approaching them with a heroine who is in a place where she has to seek redemption, or at least a, a major character upgrade, is a much more challenging prospect for so many readers.

Amanda: Well, I think we’re so hard on our heroines because as women I feel like we’re so hard on ourselves.

Sarah: We’re taught to be. Because patriarchy.

Amanda: [Laughs] So, yeah.

Sarah: Yep, pretty much. So, we’re going to talk about building a reading habit, and this was originally Elyse’s idea, so, Elyse, can I ask you to start and explain what led you to sort of throw this idea at me in Slack, to which I was like, ooh, yes!

Elyse: It was probably, probably rum. Rum would be my – [laughs] – no, I’m joking. No, I have been working very hard on creating a kind of more rigid self-care program and self-compassion program for myself, because I tend to run myself ragged, which as someone with chronic pain is not a good plan, and not give myself –

Sarah: That’s not a good habit.

Elyse: – no – and not give myself the space to really take care of myself mentally and physically, and one of the things that I have been thinking a lot about is that I spend a lot of time and money taking care of my physical health, but less so my mental and emotional health, so I’m making that more of a priority. So, part of that is setting aside daily periods of time where I’m quietly reading with no other distractions: no digital snacking, no texting –

Sarah: I love that term.

Elyse: – no work emails, to give my brain kind of like a period of rest?

Sarah: How is that working? Did you – how do you track that, and how is it working?

Elyse: Well, I set aside two separate periods of time that work the most for me. So the first one is right before bed, and part of having fibro is having a really good sleep hygiene schedule because you don’t sleep really well when you have fibro, so –

Sarah: Oh, yes.

Elyse: – an hour before I would go to sleep normally, I go upstairs, and I go to bed, and I have a hot tea and sometimes a cat, and that is my reading hour. I’m not going to look at my phone, I’m not going to do anything other than read, and then after an hour it is lights out.

Sarah: Mm-hmm.

Elyse: And one of the things I’ve done is on my – I have a, I read on a tablet – I’ve taken everything off of there, other than –

Sarah: Oh, that’s interesting!

Elyse: Yeah. So I just have the Kindle app, the Nook app; obviously, I still have web browsers and stuff; and I have a couple of games; but I took off, like, Twitter, Facebook, all of that, so that I can’t be distracted by social media. ‘Cause I find when I read on my phone, I read for a little bit, and then I’m like, what’s going on on Instagram?

Sarah: Mm-hmm.

Elyse: What’s going on on Twitter? And I don’t really –

Amanda: Or, like, another notification would, like, pop up if you have the app, yeah.

Elyse: Pop up, yeah.

Sarah: Yep.

Elyse: So, so I have my before-bed reading time, which helps me wind down, and then I’m trying to set aside an hour every day in the middle of the day somewhere, and it has to shift from day to day because of my job, where I physically leave the office, even if I just go sit –

Sarah: Smart.

Elyse: – sit in my car somewhere, like a creeper?

[Laughter]

Elyse: And I read, I read for an hour, and I don’t check my text messages or my emails. Like, I just have an hour offline. So the at-night part is definitely easier than during-the-day part.

Sarah: How has this worked for you? Do you track it? Do you sort of check it off a list, or do you just try to observe that time when it’s time?

Elyse: I just try to observe that time when it’s time. I do have, in my daily planner, I always track whether or not I read that day, but I don’t track whether I read during those specific periods of time. So I’m definitely not where I want to be in terms of having it just become an everyday routine, but I feel like I’m getting a little bit better at it, and part of that, for me, is mentally acknowledging that I deserve to have this time offline, and I deserve to be away from my desk for an hour, and I deserve to have quiet reading time kind of away from the world. I don’t always have to be engaged digitally.

Sarah: And taking care of people and things.

Elyse: Right.

Sarah: Why do you think – this is a pretty personal question, so if you don’t want to get into this, it’s totally fine, but why do you think it is a concept for you of deserving? Is it because you’ve been trained, like so many other people, myself included, to put yourself and your needs last, ahead of everything else? Or is it a way of acknowledging that you also need to care for yourself?

Elyse: I think it’s more the latter. In, for a lot of complicated reasons that have cost me a lot of money and therapy to work out –

Sarah: [Laughs] Yes, I, I have a very similar set. Do you have matching luggage for your baggage?

Elyse: Yes, exactly.

Sarah: I can, I’ve got, like, a set of nine suitcases; they’re very nice. [Laughs]

Elyse: One of the, one of the things that I have always struggled with and I’m working on is that I derive a lot of my personal value for what I, from what I’m able to do for other people, and that is not healthy. So whether it is –

Sarah: No.

Elyse: – in a relationship or – for me, it manifests mostly professionally, where I am an over-, you know, I was an overachiever at school; I’m an overachiever at work. I prioritize work sometimes above my own health and sanity, so that’s really where it shows up. And so for me, you know, like I said, I need to be able to set that aside and say, okay, this is not, this is not more important than my own mental health.

Sarah: And, and saying, this is, this is, my mental health is more important than X is a really good habit to get into it, but it’s also really difficult.

Elyse: Right, like, the company is not going to fold in the hour that I went to the coffee house and read. It would be, who knows –

Sarah: Oh, yeah.

Elyse: – maybe it would, but, you know, if it’s that bad, I’m probably not going to fix it just by being present.

Sarah: I was conditioned at a job that I had to never take a lunch hour because if I went out and, if I went out for my lunch break and certain people would call and then they would get another person to take a message and they didn’t get through and didn’t get exactly what they wanted when they wanted it, that ultimately came down on me, and so I became very conditioned to never leave my desk, and then when I started working for myself, that was a habit that I thought, oh, well, that’s how you get things done. There was a really good podcast episode of QUEERY with Cameron Esposito, and she was talking to Stephanie Beatriz from Brooklyn Nine-Nine. One of the things that Beatriz said was, you learn so easily that, oh, well, if I’m shitty to myself I’m successful, so I must be successful by being shitty to myself, so I can’t not be shitty to myself because then otherwise I won’t be successful. And that train of thought, I have to be working all the time in order to be successful; I have to be miserable in order to be successful; I have to be, you know, the last person in my own line of priorities; that’s the way it has to be. And it’s a horrible self-conditioning to undo, especially when you look at it as something as, as easy and simple and fundamental as reading a book. And, and it’s interesting because reading, like I’ve said so many times, reading is one of the very few times where I am doing only one thing, and I’m doing that one thing for myself, and it’s like, oh, oh –

Elyse: Exactly.

Sarah: – you’re, you’re, you’re indulging into an absolutely flagrant degree.

Elyse: Yeah, I think, I have two thoughts there. The first is that it’s a really weird place to be in because, like, for me, the taking the, so much self-value from work is, and from what I, what I’m able to do for other people, I mean, it’s, it’s a sign of being insecure in some ways, but at the same time, you place so much importance on the fact that I’m there, I’m doing it, this won’t work if I’m not here, it’s also narcissistic, which –

Sarah: Yes.

Elyse: – you would think, like, it, it, they’re, they’re contradictory.

Sarah: [Laughs] No, they’re not though! I mean, I’m the sole proprietor of my business, right? But there are times when I have to say out loud to myself, Sarah, it’s a website about romance novels. Go take a shower, for God’s sake. Come on, go! Like, seri-, I have said that to myself out loud in front of people, like, more times than I want to admit. [Laughs]

Elyse: And then the other thing, for me, is, like you said, the, when I’m reading, I have to be focused on this one thing. I can’t do other things and read.

Sarah: Mm-hmm.

Elyse: I can’t watch TV and read. I can’t –

Sarah: Nope.

Elyse: – talk to somebody and read. I can’t –

Sarah: Nope.

Elyse: – knit and read. And so it’s really, to me, it’s almost like an exercise in mindfulness, because it’s like I have to be present for this one thing and focused on this one thing, and that is it.

Sarah: Yeah.

Elyse: And that is so healing for my brain.

Sarah: It’s so restorative, isn’t it?

Elyse: Yes. It’s amazing!

Sarah: Yep.

Elyse: It is absolutely amazing.

Sarah: And then when something feels good you’re like, oh, I can’t do that too much! Eh, that’s just indulgent!

Elyse: Right!

Sarah: Nonononono!

Elyse: ‘Cause then, then you go blind.

Sarah: [Laughs] You get hair on, do you get hair on your palms from reading? I am so fucked. Amanda, what about you? How are you building a reading habit? ‘Cause when I suggested this topic, you were like, I have some thoughts.

Amanda: Yeah. It’s something that I haven’t really nailed down for myself yet, and I think part of the reason, and probably some of our listeners might also struggle with, is the, like, the work-from-home freelance life is so hard for taking time for yourself, because –

Sarah: Mm-hmm.

Amanda: – there’s no physical separation from, like, work and your home. It’s not like I go into an office, all of my stuff is there, all of my materials are there, my work email is there, and then at five I clock out and I get to leave and I don’t have to deal with anything until 9:00 a.m. the next morning. This is not –

Sarah: There aren’t that many jobs like that.

Amanda: [Laughs] And this is not a reflection on my work for Smart Bitches, because it is a dream job and I love it, but it’s –

Sarah: Oh, thank you.

Amanda: – but it’s something –

Sarah: It, I struggle with the same issues.

Amanda: Yeah! Like when – I feel like I don’t want to compare my work to a doctor, but, like, you’re always on call sort of thing. Like, if something –

Sarah: Mm-hmm.

Amanda: – if there’s a horrible comment on the site or something’s blowing up or not working, or the website’s on fire –

Sarah: The internet is never off.

Amanda: Yes. So it’s hard sometimes because when I want to read a book, I war with myself on, oh, I could take an hour to read, but, like, you know –

Sarah: I should do this.

Amanda: I should, yeah. Like, you know, I should schedule, like, next week’s HaBO, or maybe I could, like –

Sarah: [Laughs]

Amanda: – get a jump start on doing tomorrow’s Books on Sale, or there are a lot of books for the podcast this week, so I could start putting them into, like, our repository. So there’s always that feeling of, well, I could just be spending my time getting ahead on work or, you know, that sort of thing. So it’s hard, and I haven’t really found a way to unplug from those things, and I like Elyse’s idea of just kind of taking an hour, don’t have your computer nearby, don’t have your phone nearby, just kind of turn everything off, but I’m, I’m addicted to the internet. I am a child of the internet.

Sarah: Mm-hmm.

Amanda: So for me to kind of adapt Elyse’s regimen, I might have to, like, leave all of my electronics in a separate room. Like, physically put myself apart from my phone, my computer, everything else. But another temptation is that I love background noise while I’m reading. It’s hard for me to read in silence for whatever reason, so I’m constantly looking for mindless background noise, and I made the mistake – I think I tweeted about it – I was like, oh, I’ll put on iZombie, which is on Netflix, and I never watched it before. I was like, oh, this is just going to be, like, a silly show; I’m not going to care about it –

Sarah: Uh-oh.

Amanda: – while I read on my Kindle.

Sarah: No.

Amanda: I put my Kindle down. I watched –

Sarah: [Laughs]

Amanda: – four straight hours of iZombie, and it was 2:00 a.m. by the time I went to bed. So it was –

Sarah: Surprise!

Amanda: I called it a Bad Decisions Netflix Club.

Sarah: Yeah, there’re a lot of people in that club.

Elyse: But I, I, I get it, because even when, you know, you don’t work from home – which I’ve done before, so I totally understand what you’re talking about – even now, I have to be connected to the office all the time. I’m answering emails at 11:30 at night. I’m getting text messages first thing Saturday morning, and that’s just become an expectation of the workplace now.

Sarah: Yes. I actually learned this recently from a couple of books that I’ve been reading about productivity, time management, and digital expectations, and one of the things that’s happened as communication gets faster, the expectation of reply gets faster. You expect to have an answer immediately, and when you don’t get one you’re like, but what? And it is a, it is a challenge to train other people to understand that you will not respond immediately and you will respond when it’s good for you. And to choose to break that expectation of rapid response has a lot of consequences, both positive and negative, depending on what industry you’re in.

Amanda: I feel like there’s also this pervasive notion of, like, working yourself to the bone, if you know what I mean.

Sarah: Oh, yes, busyness is prized so much, and especially in the United States.

Amanda: Yes.

Sarah: If you’re not working and you’re not busy and you’re not stressed, you’re doing it wrong. [Sings] Bullshit!

Amanda: That’s, there’s definitely that feeling of, like, I have free time, and if I’m not using it to, like, further my work, like, what am I doing with my life, sort of.

Elyse: No, I was literally at a meeting with my boss this week where he was kind of yelling at everyone about the fact that, like, we’re all salaried, and if that means we have to work twenty hours a week, we work twenty hour – or twenty hours a day, we work twenty hours a day, and I’m just looking at him like, oh, right. Don’t think that’s possible, but okay.

Sarah: No. No, how ‘bout no. How ‘bout my job is not the only thing in my life. One of the things that happened to me when we moved to DC is that so many people here work for the government that the government is closed when the, the, when the time is done, and then there are offices that have longer hours, but when your office is closed or the government is closed, you don’t work! Because it’s closed. Like, the government takes snow days and has delayed openings, and I’m, like, always waiting for, you know, federal government two-hour delay and no morning kindergarten, because they will close, and people around here, they have hobbies. Like, it’s weird! They, like, bike and garden, and they have hobbies, and it’s like, what is going on here? My next-door neighbor is a NASA scientist, and he has, like, nine hobbies and every power tool known to man, ‘cause, you know, engineer brain, builds things. Like, he power washed his driveway, and I was just like, this is amazing. You do things outside of work; what’s this like? And my husband, when he transitioned to working for the government, went through the same thing. Like, I have all of this time where I’m not expected to be available or respond to things, and it’s kind – and, like, we talk about how it used to be when he worked for a, a law firm, and the change is, is drastic. It’s also been really influential for me, because I look at him and I think, okay, I’m self-employed. I can choose when to work and when not to work. So this is super inappropriate, and Elyse is going to cringe, ‘cause she’s also a manager, but as your boss, Amanda, I just want to say, you do not have to work all the time –

Amanda: [Laughs]

Sarah: – and you are not expected to be on call all the time! [Stage whispers] It’s a website about romance novels. It’s okay! [Normal voice] Don’t tell the internet I said that, but it’s true! It’s a website about romance novels. Go outside! [Laughs]

Amanda: But what if someone has a question?! [Laughs]

Sarah: Well, they’re just going to have to wait a few minutes! [Laughs] You know what? And what if someone has a meltdown in the comments? Well, that is a thing that happens. Oh, well! It’s, it’s, it’s a website; it’s not, you know, it’s not, it’s not neurosurgery. No one’s going to bleed to death, and people’s reading is important, and I, you know, you know, I take the community at Smart Bitches more seriously than I take anything, including myself? But it, it, one of the biggest challenges that I have faced in working at home for myself over the past almost eight years is that it’s okay to choose to not work, but I have gotten to the point where I have to ask myself, okay, Sarah, what does your not working right now look like? Like, what is not working? And I did not know the answer, and it freaked me out.

Amanda: [Laughs]

Sarah: Like, I did not – I have a notebook, so I’m, everything digital is scheduled, but I have a notebook where, I have a traveler’s notebook where I have a monthly habit tracker, and among my habit trackers that I fill in each day is Did you read today? And I thought about setting a page count, but because I read on a, a Kindle, and because I move the text size larger and smaller depending on whether or not my eyes are tired or I have a headache or I want to wear my glasses, a, a page count would not work, so I’m just like, did you read? Did you read today? And, and I try to fill in that block, okay, but even reading, it’s hard to answer that question, am I working or not working, because am I reading this book for review? Am I analyzing what I think about it while I read it? Am I reading it and asking myself, do I want to keep reading this? Is this part of my docket of books that I want to review this month? Is this a work book or a not-work book? And then I still get stuck in that question of, oh, you have to do this, and when reading becomes something that I have to do, I don’t want to do it. It’s like, I want to go play Stardew Valley and figure out why I don’t know how to fish. I don’t know how to fish in Stardew Valley; it’s really distressing me.

Amanda: [Laughs] It’s all, you’ve got to get a computer. I’m sorry –

Sarah: I know!

Amanda: – Sarah. You’ve got to do it on a computer.

Sarah: The other thing I realized about working from home – and I bet this is true for you too, Amanda – I used to have reading time built in because I had to commute and I took public transportation, so of course I was reading, like, an hour each way –

Amanda: Yeah.

Sarah: – because my commute was ghastly. Once you take away the commute, you have to figure out when to read –

Amanda: Yes.

Sarah: – and when reading is part of your job, that also becomes a challenge too.

Amanda: That’s why I’m slowly starting to get into audiobooks, and that’s, I’m excited for the Audible Romance –

Sarah: Oh –

Amanda: – like, unlimited thing.

Sarah: I want to go, like, shake the hand of the person who was like, all right I got this idea! How ‘bout unlimited romance? Like, and –

Amanda: Because –

Sarah: – it’s so smart! [Laughs]

Amanda: – my, when I have to go somewhere, it’s usually not very far. Where I live is well situated, and I can walk to Starbucks, I can walk to the grocery store, I can walk to my local bookstore, and it’s about, like, a quarter of a mile walk. I could take the T if I wanted to. I could take it up one stop, but if it’s a nice day, I’ll get a coffee and I’ll walk, and I’ll have my headphones in. So because there’s less commuting on a train and more commuting, I guess, by foot, my reading has slowly started to move to a little bit more audio, when I didn’t listen to audio at all, period. But regarding reading, I too struggle with, like, okay, I’m reading this book, but am I going to review it? Or this was already reviewed on the site, so, like, what’s the point of reading it, even if I am enjoying it?

Sarah: [Laughs] What do I think of it while I’m reading it? How am I reading this book? Is this, what is this character going to do? Like, turning off your analytical review brain?

Amanda: Yes.

Sarah: I have a whole list of books that are, you are not allowed to review these, and then of course my brain is like, but I have lots to say now! Like, in the recent, in the recent thread about comfort books, like, books that you find solace in? Someone recommended Lois McMaster Bujold’s self-published Penric novella series? Oh, my God, they’re adorable! And they were on my you don’t have to review this; it’s fine. You’ve got a review docket; take a break. It’s a novella; you won’t take that long. Oh, my gosh, I have so much to say now. Like, so much.

Elyse: I think we’ve talked before about how I’m really good at taking the things I enjoy and making them stressful for myself?

Sarah: We have talked about that! Yes!

Amanda: [Laughs]

Elyse: See, see earlier comment about the amount of money Elyse has spent on therapy. So I don’t know what –

Sarah: And, and knitting and books and books and knitting and coffee? Yeah.

Elyse: And knitting and coffee, yes. I don’t know what the ever-loving fuck I was thinking when I set my Goodreads challenge for 2017 –

Sarah: [Laughs]

Elyse: – ‘cause I thought, so I thought that, like, two hundred books was a completely reasonable number. I don’t – I was sober when I did it; I know I was. Apparently, I don’t know how to math, because there are fucking 365 days in a year, so I’m just over a hundred books for the year, which is a lot of books, right? But I’m pissed off ‘cause there’s no way I’m ever going to meet that challenge, and every time I put a book on Goodreads, I get this email from Goodreads that says, so you finished The Winter People by Jennifer McMahon. What should you do next? And I’m like, I know what I’m going to do next, Goodreads. I have a giant fucking stack of books here, okay.

[Laughter]

Elyse: I don’t need any more pressure from you. I need emotional support, and I need coffee, and I need you to fuck off!

Amanda: I’m surprised that when you set your goal Goodreads wasn’t like, are you sure about that?

[Laughter]

Elyse: Like, Netflix, like, are you still watching Stranger Things? I am, you judgmental bitch.

Sarah: [Laughs]

Amanda: Yes, I’ve been sitting here –

Elyse: Oh, God.

Amanda: – for four straight hours in my own filth. Leave me alone. You don’t need to remind me that I haven’t showered all day.

Elyse: So one of the things about how I read is, I do definitely read digitally, but I mostly read in paperback, which is also very expensive, because I literally stare at three screens all day, and when I get home from work I don’t want to look at screens anymore, because screens are work –

Sarah: Yes!

Elyse: – and so my brain, my brain doesn’t separate so much, and, like, I’ve noticed when I read on my Kindle, even as I’m getting tired and I’m like, I should probably go to bed now, my brain is like, no button next screen next screen go next screen.

Sarah: [Laughs]

Elyse: It’s like this, this compulsion that I don’t have when I read in paperback. So I literally have stacks of books all over my fucking house, and Sarah had made the comment once, like, we were talking about saving books, and I’m like, oh, I, I don’t do that, ‘cause I don’t reread, and you were like, well, I’ve seen pictures of your house; why are all those books there? And it was like, so about that –

[Laughter]

Elyse: – I don’t have a TBR pile; I have a TBR house. And –

Sarah: [Laughs] The foundation walls of your, of your house are made of paperback books? Surprisingly sturdy!

Elyse: And hardcovers.

Sarah: And hardcovers, yeah.

Elyse: Yeah! There are literally books fucking everywhere –

Sarah: [Laughs]

Elyse: – and that, that stresses me out too, because sometimes, like, the pile falls down, and it’s loud, and then, like, that’s just a, you know, audio reminder of how many books I have left to read.

Amanda: And then you have to fix the pile, and you’re like – [sighs].

Sarah: Oh, this book! I forgot to read – oh, and I have to read this one, oh, and I should read this one. Yeah.

Elyse: Yes.

Amanda: I’m definitely experiencing a shift between my digital reading and reading in paperback.

Sarah: And audio too! You, you’re definitely changing –

Amanda: Yeah!

Sarah: – how you read.

Amanda: Well, from, for the last six months, I have been really resistant to reading digitally. Like, I don’t want to read digitally. I want to have a book in my hands. I have no problem with, you know, eBooks at all, but for some reason if I have to read on my Kindle, I just don’t feel like reading. Even if I’m really excited about the story or, or anything else, if I have to read it digitally, it saps my, my excitement for reading.

Sarah: Is it because it’s a, it’s a, it’s a device?

Amanda: I think so. I think it’s because I just don’t want to read on a screen lately. I, I don’t want to do that. And maybe because Elyse had made a point where screens are associated with work, and –

Sarah: That’s really interesting.

Amanda: Yeah! So –

Elyse: I think I saw a, a thing on the Reductress that I’ve re-did, or reposted on Facebook, and it was like, woman who drinks twelve highly caffeinated beverages a day worries about blue light habits, like, with sleeping, and I feel like that just was, that’s me –

[Laughter]

Elyse: – right? Like, it’s, it’s 9:30, and I just had a Coke Zero, and then I’m like, oh, maybe this blue light thing is why I can’t fall asleep!

[Laughter]

Sarah: I think that’s really interesting that you’re both device and also paper readers, because, like I’ve said, I almost always read on a Kindle because I have so much control over the, over the text size, and for the last week I have been trying out the new Kindle Oasis, the new, like, super high-end, drop it in water, it can swim, and it plays Audible over Bluetooth device, the Kindle? And I had to seriously talk myself into buying this. My old Paperwhite kept booting, and I would, like, turn the page, and it would take, like, four and a half seconds to remember, and of course by then I’d turned, like, three pages trying to get it to respond, so it was, it was dying, and it was time, but the Oasis is really expensive, and as I’ve been sort of mentally asking myself about for my future review, do I recommend that people buy it? I don’t honestly know that I do, because it is so expensive for what it is, and you, I think that I would be just as happy with the Paperwhite, which is less quality – or, less quality, less costly – but I get why they call it the Oasis. I read a review of it on The Verge, and the guy was really – I think it was a guy – was really dissatisfied, because even though you can stream Audible, you can’t read a book and listen to Audible at the same time, for what he called an immersive experience, and I was like, my brain would hate that so much, because when I listen to an audiobook, I listen to it at about 1.4 or 1.5 normal speed, and my reading is probably faster than that, so my brain and my – my eyes and my brain and my ears and my brain would not be on the same track – [laughs] – and that would be just very messy. But when I have the Kindle, if, even if it’s the Paperwhite, that’s the only thing I’m doing, and that device and the E Ink says to me, it is read time, and that’s the only thing this device does, and I think that’s part of why it’s called the Oasis. It’s the only thing you do on that device is consume media, even though you can share progress and connect to Goodreads. One of the criticisms of this Verge review was that the Kindle Fire tablets are so much cheaper, they have the Kindle app and Twitter and Facebook, and I’m like, yeah, I actually don’t want those things near my reading. I don’t want them anywhere near what I’m reading or me. Like, I will leave my phone on a whole other floor to get away from – I’m going to have to figure out who said this, but this podcast I was listening to, I want to say it might have been – no, it wasn’t Jason Fried from Basecamp; it was somebody else – but he basically said, your, your brain is full of guppies that crave serotonin, and signing onto social media is like all the guppies come to the surface of your brain and are like, feed us, feed us, feed us! I have to shut up the guppies by tossing my phone in a completely other place. I don’t want Twitter and Facebook and Instagram and Goodreads and anything else giving me any kind of notification when it’s reading time. I want that literal oasis, and having that is so crucial that paper is even, it’s, it’s uncomfortable for me enough that I’m distracted. Like, oh, the text is too small; oh, I, I’m having trouble reading this. Any discomfort that is eradicated and any interruption or notification that is eradicated makes it easier for me to really immerse myself in my reading, which is when I feel the most recharged. You know what I mean?

Elyse: Mm-hmm! Yeah, I think one of the reasons I really like reading in paper too is that I give books away when I’m done with them.

Sarah: Mm-hmm.

Elyse: So I have lots of reading friends, and they like different things, and so I’m kind of like, I take pleasure in, I’m going to read this, and then who, who would like it when I’m done? And so I share a lot of books with my friends that way too.

Sarah: Mm-hmm.

Elyse: I like having that physical thing that – you know, it’s hard to, you can give someone a, a Kindle book or a Nook book or however they read, but it’s, I don’t know, it’s different. It’s like, I want to share this experience with you.

Sarah: Mm-hmm.

Amanda: I wish my roommate would do that –

Sarah: [Laughs]

Amanda: – because – [laughs] – Stephanie reads a lot of YA, she consumes YA, and she reads a lot. Like, she reads every single night, and she’s got a really good reading habit, but she keeps every book she reads, even if she doesn’t like it, and so we have no more room in this apartment for another bookshelf.

Sarah: [Laughs] That’s going to be expensive when you move.

Amanda: I know. We don’t, and she just got a new bookshelf. It’s already pretty much filled up, and she’s struggling with, well, what a, I need more space! And I told her, I was like, why don’t you just get rid of the books that you didn’t like? She’s like, yeah, I should go through my books –

Sarah: Yes!

Amanda: – but then she doesn’t.

Sarah: Oh, man.

Amanda: So I was like, why are you keeping books that you didn’t enjoy? We have a Little Free Library!

Elyse: Yeah, I read too much too quickly to keep books, because then I would, I would have, I’d be worried about, like, the, the security of my for, you know, floor collapsing –

Sarah: [Laughs]

Elyse: – so. I have a friend who is a reading specialist for, like, middle, middle-aged, or middle-school-aged kids, and so I send her all my YA.

Sarah: Aw!

Amanda: I thought you were going to say middle-aged school kids.

Elyse: Yeah, them.

Sarah: I was going to say, there’s a reading specialist for middle-aged people? I might want to talk to that person!

Elyse: I meant to say middle grade, not middle-aged.

Amanda: [Laughs] I also feel like the universe knows when I want to read or even take a nap, because my phone starts blowing up, my mom needs to talk, my brother wants to text me. Like –

Sarah: [Laughs]

Amanda: – just so many things start happening, and I’m like, please just leave me alone! Like, they know when I want to be left alone, and that’s when all the things happen on my phone.

Sarah: I have a, a special guest here with me, my, my younger son.

Moose: Hi.

Sarah: Hi.

Moose: Hi.

Amanda: Hi.

Sarah: This is Elyse and Amanda, and we’ve decided your name for this podcast is going to be…Moose?

Moose: Sure.

Sarah: Okay, okay. So how old are you, Moose?

Moose: I am ten.

Sarah: And do you like to read?

Moose: Yes.

Sarah: Why did you get to have a reading habit?

Amanda: [Laughs]

Sarah: When I told Moose, when I told Moose that we were going to be recording about, talking about a reading habit, he’s like, oh, I have ideas! So why do you have a reading habit? How come you ended up with a habit of reading?

Moose: Last year in fourth grade, I had to read thirty minutes every day, even on the weekends, so every night before bed I read thirty minutes, and it’s still like that. I still have to read thirty minutes, but it created a habit because I had to do it no matter what, and it helped me sleep, so I did it for more than one reason.

Sarah: And when you knew the benefit, that it helped you sleep, it was easier to do that every day.

Moose: And it was easier to get comfortable with it.

Sarah: Now, what do you like to read? Do you like to read on an eBook, or do you like to read paper?

Moose: Preferably paper, but eBooks are fine.

Sarah: EBooks are fine. And how about audiobooks?

Moose: Those are also good.

Sarah: Those are also good; you’re not too particular? So what happens when you’re reading? Like, when you’re reading, are you relaxed?

Moose: Yeah, mainly because I’m in bed, but.

Sarah: Yeah. So you associate reading with something you do before bed to help you sort of end the day, right?

Moose: Yeah. Speaking of that, one thing about me is that an easy way to make a habit is you find the thing that it helps you with –

Sarah: Yes, that’s true!

Moose: – other than just making the habit. Find the things that it’ll do to help you.

Sarah: So find the reason for having the habit.

Moose: Yeah!

Sarah: So your reasons for having a reading habit are (a) your teacher will be mad at you if you don’t – [laughs] –

Moose: Yeah, my teacher will, like, explode.

Amanda: [Laughs]

Sarah: And, although this year, in fifth grade, you have a teacher who’s like, you don’t have to do the reading on Saturday nights and Sunday nights, so it’s –

Moose: And Friday nights.

Sarah: Oh, so it’s just Monday through Thursday nights she wants you to read. Which is different from your fourth-grade teacher. Which do you think is better, all seven nights or just reading for four nights?

Moose: I mean, to create the habit, you, the seven, I didn’t read seven nights, I read an hour on Sunday?

Sarah: Yeah, you would skip Saturday nights, and we’d read an hour on Sunday, which you did not like, ‘cause it sounded like a lot of time, and then you’d get started and you’d go through the end of the time range, ‘cause we’d –

Moose: And I was like, can I read more?

Sarah: Yeah, like we’re going to say no.

Moose: Yeah, like every –

Sarah: No, I’m sorry. You can’t read any more; you have to stop.

Moose: Like, every night, I’ve asked to read more –

Sarah: Yep!

Moose: – because of last year.

Sarah: Mm-hmm.

Moose: So –

Sarah: How do you feel after you read?

Moose: Tired.

Sarah: Tired? Do you –

Moose: Well, I don’t feel tired, but I know I am.

Sarah: But you are, and it’s easier to go to sleep?

Moose: Yeah, ‘cause electronics make, keep your eyes awake, and when you’re reading a book it’s just paper with words.

Sarah: Yep.

Moose: And it’s not flashing lights.

Sarah: No, it’s not flashing lights.

Amanda: I have a question for Moose.

Sarah: That’s Amanda.

Amanda: Moose, do you think it’s im- – yeah. Do you think it’s important to read at a specific time every night to keep that habit?

Moose: Yes. I, in my opinion, I think that you should so you don’t just have, like, so it’s not like, I’m just going to do it later, I’m just going to do it later, continuously, so you don’t end up actually doing it. Make sure you read every night with no exceptions. That’s one way I’ve created my habit: not being lazy and stopping. Like, being strict about it and making sure I do it. For more than one reason: last year I had a strict teacher, and (2) it helps me sleep.

Sarah: Yep. But the helping you sleep was the more effective reason. Like, yes, you’ll get in trouble; yes, you’ll get in trouble if you, if you don’t your reading, but having the sleeping reason really convinced you, and you were not at all resistant to reading after we were like, dude, you sleep better. Oh, yeah!

Moose: And after, like, two months was it, I would just, like, let me read more!

Sarah: This is my, this is, I want to read. This is great! And there’re so many more books for you to read now.

Moose: Yes, more books. And more books.

Sarah: Do you have any advice for anybody who wants to develop a reading habit and doesn’t have a teacher who’s grading them? ‘Cause that’s the hard thing about being a grownup. You have to be your own sort of teacher and be like, okay, the consequences are that you have to read, and sometimes, sometimes adults give really mean consequences to themselves. It’s a problem. So what are, what is your advice for someone who wants to have a better reading habit?

Moose: I have two things: one is create a schedule that you keep near the place where you think you should read.

Sarah: Oh!

Moose: And two is – [sighs] – darn it.

Sarah: You forgot?

Moose: Yep.

Sarah: I have an idea of what you do. Maybe this is what you were going to say: keep everything where you need to have it so that when it’s time to do it you have everything there. You have your book –

Moose: Oh, wait, I remembered.

Sarah: – you have your light – you remembered! Go ahead!

Moose: So instead of, it’s not really grading yourself, but every, like, week or every two weeks, you take a look at, like, a schedule, the schedule that you have and how many times you’ve read –

Sarah: Mm-hmm.

Moose: – and, and, like, grade yourself on how many times you’ve read. Like, ten times, ten times out of fourteen is like an A; fourteen out of fourteen is like an A+; or –

Sarah: Mm-hmm.

Moose: – something like that.

Sarah: Should you have rewards?

Moose: Yeah, you can reward yourself. Like, I can do this now instead of doing that now.

Sarah: So having rewards might help too.

Moose: Yeah!

Sarah: All right! Do you guys have any other questions for young Moose?

Elyse: What are you reading right now?

Amanda: Moose?

Moose: Right now I was, I was reading the Harry Potter series. Right now I’m just reading some other books like, I think I’m reading Big Neat?

Sarah: Yes.

Moose: I’m in the middle of Big Nate.

Sarah: I’m not a fan of Big Nate because he’s kind of a jerk, but you recognize the ways in which Big Nate is a jerk.

Moose: Yeah.

Sarah: Yeah.

Moose: He calls people who are good in class nerds.

Sarah: Yes.

Moose: And, and he thinks someone who’s good in class and likes the teacher is, like, a jerkwad, which is stupid.

Sarah: Yeah.

Moose: Completely stupid.

Sarah: Yeah. Isn’t that a bad word, though? Aren’t you not supposed to say stupid? Or is that at your old school, stupid was a bad word?

Moose: No, old old school.

Sarah: Your old old school it was a bad word, that’s right. You’re not allowed to say stupid at your old old school.

Moose: Yeah.

Sarah: What book do you want to read next?

Moose: Probably the second book in a, in a series I read at school called Hilo?

Sarah: Hilo?

Moose: Yeah. It’s about a robot who cra-, who cra-, who’s in a parallel dimension who stops bad robots from going wrong, and he has, and he can, like, shoot lasers out of his hands.

Sarah: That sounds good!

Moose: Yeah, it is.

Sarah: I can –

Amanda: I have a two- –

Sarah: Okay.

Amanda: – two-part question. How many books have you read this year? And what’s been the best book you’ve read so far?

Sarah: Oh, that is a good question. I don’t know if we’ve counted how many books.

Moose: How many books I’ve read? I’d say at least ten.

Sarah: Yes, but some of them were the really large Harry Potters.

Moose: Yeah. Most, like, at least ten, because I took breaks from Harry Potter reading Big Nate, and at school I read, so I’d say at least ten.

Sarah: And you’ve read that whole graphic novel series that you were waiting for at the library, too.

Moose: No, not –

Sarah: Amulet?

Moose: That, not this year. I’m still waiting for the third book after I get the –

Sarah: Second one.

Moose: Here’s the most annoying thing: I had the first, I had the first book, I read it, no problem, and then I had to wait, like, three weeks for the second book, and all of the third books were there, and then by the time I get the second book and finish it, none of the third books are there!

Sarah: Oh, man!

Moose: It’s so aggravating!

Sarah: That is so annoying.

Moose: ‘Cause there’s so many of the third books.

Amanda: Waiting is the worst!

Sarah: That is the worst. That really is the worst. What’s your favorite book that you’ve read this year so far, do you remember?

Moose: 5-Minute Marvel Stories.

Sarah: 5-Minute Marvel Stories! Why? You just finished that, like, last week. What did you like about it?

Moose: Everything.

Sarah: Everything?

Moose: The only thing I didn’t like was the, was the graphics for Peter Parker.

Sarah: Yeah?

Moose: His head was, like, a shape, not like a circle. It was just like, it was like –

Sarah: [Laughs] It was a shape!

Moose: – his, his chin was like a, his chin was like a –

Sarah: Trapezoid!

Moose: [Laughs] No, his chin was like a triangle, just –

Sarah: That’s cool. I can understand not liking the illustration.

Moose: And then when he puts the mask on, his head is, his head is like this.

Sarah: It’s all rounded.

Moose: Yeah.

Sarah: That’s very silly.

Moose: But when his mask is off, his head is different.

Sarah: So for you, the illustrations didn’t work for that one.

Moose: Yeah.

Sarah: That’s cool! Thank you for participating in our conversation about reading habits. I appreciated that you thought about it and you wanted to join in. Do you guys have any other questions for young Moose?

Elyse: No, but it was good talking to you!

Sarah: Say bye-bye.

Moose: Bye!

Amanda: Bye!

Sarah: I’ll be down in a bit, and we’ll go to lunch, ‘kay?

Moose: Yeah.

Sarah: Cool. Thank you for indulging Moose as he wanted to talk about reading, ‘cause he and I talk about reading a lot.

Amanda: Moose makes it sound so easy. I’m like, what am I doing with my life?

Sarah: [Laughs] Well, I mean, when you’re, when you’re a fourth or fifth grader and a large portion of your grade rests on having read and filled out a reading sheet and there are activities and graded activities based on what you’re reading in school, it’s, it’s a little bit easier, I think, to stay on the ball.

Amanda: Sarah, I’m going to need you to give me graded activities from now on.

Sarah: [Laughs]

Elyse: Right. I would just like to, like, Skype with Moose periodically and talk about what we’re reading?

Sarah: Okay!

Elyse: So if you could, yeah –

Sarah: Sure.

Elyse: And Lego.

Sarah: No problem. It’s actually the, my older son Freebird who’s more into Lego. Moose is super into Minecraft, and this is why I knew he would love Stardew Valley. It, Stardew Valley is really like if, if Minecraft and Pokémon had a baby and then, like, just rolled around in, in loose catnip, because it is so perfect for him. There’s crafting and digging and building and destroying things, and then there’s a story that you can follow along with and level up! Like, it’s the greatest game for him. But, yeah, I will totally hook you up so you guys can chat about what we’re reading.

Elyse: Awesome! That would be excellent.

Sarah: Yeah.

Elyse: Moose, here’s, here’s this woman from Wisconsin you’ve never heard of before. We’ll just –

Amanda: [Laughs]

Elyse: – we’re going to form a book club.

Sarah: That’s fine! Yeah, it’s no big deal. He, he desperately wants a YouTube channel, and I’m trying to figure out how to make that happen in a way that’s safe for him? But one of my driving philosophies in terms of being a parent of kids in the age of the internet is that I try not to include them or feature them or even mention them all that much, because I had the freedom when the internet showed up to create my own identity. Like, it, I just created my own existence online, and I would, I would have been really bummed if someone had created an identity for me by sharing so much of my youth and my childhood, and so I want them to have the freedom to sort of, you know, show up online and create their own identity the way they want without my having created anything there for them with lots of pictures. Like, there’re very few pictures of them on the internet and I don’t talk about them a lot, because I want them to have the sort of creative freedom to invent themselves the way they want to, and I’m really struggling with when is the right time for him to be able to start doing that, because he wants to connect with people the way that they, they connect with him, you know what I mean?

Elyse: Mm-hmm.

Amanda: What kind of YouTube channel does he want to do?

Sarah: He wants to do, like, a, a gaming channel where he records himself playing Minecraft or playing Stardew Valley. He wants to do, he watches a lot of gamers on YouTube, and he wants to do that too. It’s very cute. But he also wants to demonstrate how he does things. Like, he thinks that there is a very specific way to go down a hill in a sled, and he wants to teach that method to other people.

Amanda: [Laughs]

Sarah: I don’t know if you’ve noticed this, but he is my extroverted child. [Laughs]

Elyse: No, I didn’t pick up on that at all.

Sarah: No, not at all, and he started talking at nine months old and has not stopped. And now he is ten, so – [laughs] – parenting is –

Amanda: It’s only going to get worse as he learns more words.

Sarah: Oh, God, his, and this was a problem for Adam and me when we were parenting him, because I was like, we have to remember, he has the vocabulary of a forty-five-year-old, but he’s seven, or he’s five. He’s emotionally a very young person with the vocabulary of an adult, and so just because he can articulate in incredibly complex language what is going on does not mean that we should be convinced to give him extra dessert, even though he’s made a very cogent and layered argument in favor of that position.

Amanda: [Laughs] Come on, Sarah, give the kid some extra dessert.

Sarah: [Laughs] I know!

Amanda: He reads every night!

Sarah: I know, I know! And even though, you know, don’t reward people with food; they’re not dogs. Like, food is a really great reward for me; it works great.

Elyse: Yeah, wait, wait. Who came up with that bullshit idea?

Sarah: [Laughs] I know! So do you guys have any resolutions for yourself? ‘Cause, you know, we’re approaching the, the new year. What are your, do, do you have any resolutions for reading more or differently, or instead are you going to focus on making reading a habit that is kind to yourself?

Elyse: Definitely the latter, I, because if I make a rule or a plan or a goal for myself, it is just a means of punishing myself later on.

Sarah: Yeah, that’s not good.

Elyse: No.

Amanda: I’m going to, I’m going to pull a Moose and –

Sarah: Yay!

Amanda: I really liked his idea of – I don’t even know why I didn’t think of it, but reading before bed as a way of, like, conditioning yourself as, like, settling down for the night? ‘Cause I do have, like, trouble getting to sleep or going to sleep at a certain time –

Sarah: Mm-hmm.

Amanda: – so I’m hoping that will also help with that.

Sarah: So, like, making reading a ritual.

Amanda: Yes. Like a bedtime ritual.

Elyse: So I have, I have conditioned the cat inadvertently –

[Laughter]

Elyse: – about bedtime reading. So I try to go to bed at the same time every night and read for an hour –

Sarah: Mm-hmm.

Elyse: – and he likes that, ‘cause then he hops up on the bed, and we have, like, snuggles, and – which is a reward for reading in itself – so now I’ve noticed, like, on nights where I stay up late or maybe we’re watching something or I got home from work late or whatever, it’s, all of a sudden it’s like, where’d the hell the cat go? And I’ll go upstairs, and he’s lying by the bed looking at me with such –

Amanda: He’s like, come on!

Elyse: – such disappointment. Like –

Sarah: [Laughs]

Elyse: – you are not maintaining the schedule. I have been up here for thirty minutes. Where are you? It’s reading time.

Sarah: I have been abandoned.

Elyse: Yes.

Sarah: My larger, more stubborn cat, Orville, who is a very large animal, he will get irritated if I haven’t turned out the bedside light, and then he will get irritated if I haven’t gone to bed by ten, and if I’m lying on my bed with the Kindle, like, I put my head on the pillow and I put the Kindle right, right by the pillow, and I tilt it up a little bit, he will come and just flop over on top of the Kindle. Like, nope, you’re done now. Here’s my gut. Boom.

Amanda: Linus is the same way with my phone. He doesn’t like it when I use my phone in bed. He will come up and start, like, nibbling on my phone case –

Sarah: [Laughs]

Amanda: – or he’ll, like –

Sarah: Put it away.

Amanda: – if I’m listening to a podcast –

Sarah: Put it away.

Amanda: – he will come over, sit his fluffy belly onto my phone –

Sarah: Yep.

Amanda: – and I can no longer hear the podcast coming out of my phone.

Sarah: Yes, time to stop now. Hi. Yes, cats are wonderful for terrible habit formation. Like, imagine if they were like, okay, it’s, now it’s time for you to eat chocolate.

Elyse: I think, going back to your earlier question, my goal for next year is just to try and get through some of these stacks of books in my house, but that’s more for practical reasons so that I can, you know –

[Laughter]

Sarah: Move.

Elyse: – navigate. Yeah, right. And, and also to, you know, read them versus spending money on new books, which, LOL, is going to happen anyway.

[Laughter]

Sarah: I have started keeping a review spreadsheet for myself, ‘cause I remember mentioning, I think, in a prior podcast that I’m paranoid that Goodreads would make all my lists public by changing all the security settings, and then, like, all of my shorthand comments would be visible to the world, which would be very bad. So I have a reading spreadsheet, but I have breaks, so now I’ve, I’ve added a second column? The first column is, it would be really cool if you had something to say about this book and could review it, and, and I leave myself a little note, but then I also have a column of, you don’t have to read this; this is going to be really enjoyable. Inevitably, I end up wanting to say something about it, because the habit of wanting to tell people about a book that I’ve read is so deeply embedded in my brain that if I tell the analytical review part of my brain, no, no, no, take a break. You don’t have to do, you don’t have to manage this one; it’s all good. That part of my brain wakes up at the end and is like, oh, my God, I have so many thoughts! Go get a pen! [Laughs]

Elyse: I’m going to finish it before I tell you for sure it’s for Sarahs, ‘cause it’s a romantic suspense.

Sarah: Good.

Elyse: It’s called Hard as Ice, and it’s by Raven Scott –

Sarah: Mm-hmm.

Elyse: – and it’s the first book in this new romantic suspense series I found called the Fortis series, F-O-R-T-I-S, and so the book is romantic suspense, but it’s about a, a jewelry heist, not murder.

Sarah: Mm-hmm.

Elyse: So the heroine works for this big, like, auction house type of thing, and they were going to auction off this necklace called the Crimson Amazon. It’s a red diamond, it’s extremely rare, and it gets stolen, and the way it was –

Sarah: Course it does.

Elyse: Right – the way it was stolen implies that it had to have been an inside job. There had to have been knowledge of their security and everything like that. So the guy who owns this big auction house type of thing hires this company called Fortis to come in, and it’s all a bunch of romance novel heroes waiting for their own books, to come in and find –

Sarah: [Laughs]

Elyse: – who stole the book, or stole the, the necklace. So while part of his team is, they’re openly acting as, like, security and investigators, the hero, in order to try and suss out who was the person on the inside who did the job, is posing as a very wealthy business owner whose father died, and now he wants to auction off his father’s painting collection. So I’m curious to see how it works out because in the, I’m still in the beginning, and he suspects that the heroine may have been involved in the theft. He’s deceiving her as to who he is –

Sarah: Hmm.

Elyse: – but at the same time, they’re really attracted to each other and connecting, so –

Sarah: Ooh.

Elyse: – I think it might be a book for Sarahs; I’ll let you know. So far, there’s really –

Sarah: I’m always into heists.

Elyse: There’s, so far, there’s really no violence.

Sarah: Okay! Good to know.

Elyse: I was going to say, at one point, though, he invites her to a meeting in his hotel room, and thanks to Harvey Weinstein, that totally pulled me out of the book.

Sarah: Yeah, like, dude, don’t go to that; that’s gross. No.

Amanda: That’s a no.

Sarah: No.

Elyse: Right.

Sarah: No.

Elyse: Right.

Sarah: Amanda?

Amanda: Eric and I were coming back from a brewery yesterday, and I, this was after I had just told him my NaNo plot, which is paranormal romance, and he’s like, why aren’t there any romances with breweries? This is like, there are. It’s a thing right now.

Sarah: It’s totally a thing.

Amanda: And then he’s like, wait a second. He’s like, you need to write one. I was like, I’m not going to pivot. I’m already starting to write something else. I’m not going to write a brewery romance, and he’s like, but just think of, like, all the great titles, because brew rhymes with do. You could have, like, Brewing It or Brew Me, and he kept just thinking of these awful, horrible –

Sarah: Brewing the Dirty.

Amanda: – brew – yes.

Sarah: Brewing the Deed.

Amanda: Just Brew It.

Sarah: Brewing the Deed.

Amanda: Yeah.

Elyse: Brew Me from Behind.

Amanda: [Laughs] Yes! And I’m like, this is terrible.

Sarah: Brew Me from Behind!

[Laughter]

Sarah: Oh, God!

Elyse: Oh, I’m so ashamed of myself.

Amanda: He just thought it was the greatest idea he ever thought of.

Sarah: Someone’s going to listen to that and be like, series idea!

Amanda: Yeah, I mean, just –

Sarah: [Laughs]

Amanda: – just mention me in the acknowledgments, and that’s it. We have a deal; you can take that.

Sarah: However, I would like to point out that if you are writing a book with breweries in it and you go to breweries, that’s research and therefore a tax deduction.

Elyse: So have you explained to Eric yet that if he starts a sentence, why aren’t there romance novels with, the answer is always yes?

Sarah: There already are?

Elyse: Yes.

Sarah: Except for the sentence which I always love: but how come there aren’t romances that end unhappily? I’ve had that one –

Elyse: ‘Cause then it’s –

Amanda: ‘Cause it’s not a romance. Get out.

Sarah: I’ve had it, I’ve had that one a few times. Like, ‘cause that’s a different genre.

Amanda: I had someone, like, comment on a thing I wrote for Book Riot about, they’re like, well, there’s Romeo and Juliet and Tristan and Isolde. I was like, those aren’t romances.

Sarah: That’s, it says tragedy on the title page, y’all. Says tragedy.

Amanda: Yeah.

Sarah: ‘Cause they die! And it’s miserable. Yeah. Oh, people. Well, thank you, guys, for taking the time to record with me.

[music]

Sarah: And that brings us to the end of this week’s episode. I hope you enjoyed our conversation. If you would like to tell us about your reading habits, how you have created and maintained your own reading time, I would love to hear from you. You can email us at [email protected]. You can record a voice memo and email it to me there, which is so awesome; I love when you do that. Or you can leave a voicemail at 1-201-371-3272. I would really be interested in hearing how you create and maintain your own reading time. It can be quite a challenge.

I also want to tell you thank you for many things. First, thank you for listening. Thank you for leaving reviews and recommending the show and subscribing, and thank you for having a look at our podcast Patreon. A special thank-you to our Patreon sponsors, because you are so great! If you would like to have a look at patreon.com/SmartBitches, every monthly pledge for as little as a dollar makes a very, very significant difference in the show and helps me commission transcripts for older episodes. Going back into the archives, also a lot of fun.

Today’s podcast was brought to you by Dreamlands by Felicitas Ivey. This is the first of a series found at DSP Publications, and it is a series filled with danger, monsters, and love, with heroes struggling towards their Happily Ever After. True love will win out, but after it goes through the wringer once or twice, ‘cause, you know, it’s a romance. The Trust and its battle-hardened recruits are fighting a horrific war between the humans of this world and the demons of the Dreamlands, and in this shadowy battle, Keno Inuzaka is merely a pawn, first an innocent bystander imprisoned and abused by the Trust, then a captive of a demon oni when taken to the Dreamlands. But oni Samojirou Aboshi treats that human with unexpected care and respect, and the demon only just earns Keno’s trust when a team from the Trust arrives to exploit Dreamlands magic. As the war spreads across both worlds, Keno is torn between them. If he survives, he faces a decision: go home, carve out a new life under the thumb and watchful eye of the Trust, or stay in the Dreamlands and find freedom in love. You can find out more about Dreamlands by Felicitas Ivey at her website, at DSP Publications, and I will have links to both at smartbitchestrashybooks.com/podcast.

The music you’re listening to is provided by Sassy Outwater. I will have information right now! – Ha-ha! – about this track. This is “Je m’amuse” by Caravan Palace. It is from their two-album set, Caravan Palace and Panic, which if you’ve listened to this podcast, you know I really like. You can find it on iTunes or on Amazon, and you can also find out more about Caravan Palace at caravanpalace.com or on their Facebook page.

You can find links to all of the books we discussed in this episode at smartbitchestrashybooks.com/podcast.

And, as usual, I end with a terrible joke. Are you ready? Here we go:

Why did the velociraptor eat his friend?

Why did the velociraptor eat his friend? Because Jurassic times call for Jurassic measures.

[Laughs] Thank you to Mellow_out_dude on Reddit for that joke, because it totally made my day!

And on behalf of Amanda and Elyse and myself and all of the mammals that live with us, we wish you the very best of reading and excellent reading time. Have a great weekend, and we will see you here next week.

[amusing music]