In this episode, Sarah and I talk all things reading. We share reading habits and preferences (are you team e-books, audiobooks, paper, or all of the above?). We talk favorite titles and more.

In the Q&A we answer a question from a listener who wants to get more involved in her school’s parent-teacher association.

Please give the episode a listen! And if you’re looking for a community of people with which to discuss all things work and life, please consider joining our Patreon group. Our forum features 3-4 discussion threads per week on topics such as planning, weekend pants, supervising kid music practice, and more. Our next virtual meet-up will be on 11/28, when we’ll discuss Virginia Sole-Smith’s book, Fat Talk. Membership is $9/month (Patreon has a “join for free” option, but scroll down for the real sign up button, as you won’t be able to access any of the content with the free selection). Hope to see you there!

We differ here. Sarah has decided to cut social media completely out of her life because she found it challenging to limit the time devoted to it — and in her busy life, there were things she’d much rather spend those minutes on (like reading 50 books a year and running 50 miles a week!). I tend to use social media more recreationally and go in and out of using different apps. There’s no right or wrong way — it’s about how it fits in with the rest of your life.

In the Q&A we discuss something related — how to find more time to read (this is often inversely correlated with recreational screen time…).

Please give the episode a listen, and as always we welcome ratings and reviews!

So this year I just hauled out all the books in early November. I read stories with the 2-year-old every night, and many nights I read with the 7-year-old and the 11-year-old (whose literary tastes are more sophisticated, but she is very into Christmas!). Here’s what’s going over well with them and (crucially) me, since there is a lot of re-reading going on.

First, let’s talk about the Grinch. The 2-year-old requests this just about every night. Dr. Seuss’s The Grinch Who Stole Christmas is a classic for a reason — perfect for read-alouds. I’m tired of it, but not quite as tired as I would be if he’d become obsessed with something else. Other current favorites include Construction Site on Christmas Night and Merry Christmas Daniel Tiger (the lift-the-flap book). He has also enjoyed How to Catch Santa and Little Blue Truck’s Christmas (a board book whose last page lights up!)

The older kids are a bit more into the stories. We always enjoy Christmas Farm, with its tale of Parker and Wilma planting dozens of Christmas tree seedlings on the back hill, seeing some lost every winter to moose and mice, but still managing to sell hundreds to neighbors near and far. In keeping with the agrarian theme, we’ve also enjoyed Apple Tree Christmas, about a family living somewhere blizzard-prone, whose favorite apple tree takes on a new life after a terrible storm. I like Pearl S. Buck’s Christmas Day in the Morning (yes, she wrote a children’s book), though my children, who complain about emptying the dishwasher, were stretching to fathom waking up at 4 a.m. every day to do the milking.

Those books are all wholesome, but sometimes you’re in the mood for a book about tricking someone or something bad. Cranberry Christmas is always fun, with Mr. Whiskers helping thwart a villain so the children of Cranberryport can ice skate on their pond again. I don’t really think much about seaside towns in winter, but of course they continue to exist, and so I always like the images of shell ornaments and frozen bogs. Then there’s Who’s That Knocking on Christmas Eve, which is Jan Brett’s beautifully-illustrated tale of a boy from Finnmark, a cozy cottage, an “ice bear” (isbjorn!), and naughty trolls who learn their lesson about messing with one.

If you’re into far northern scenery, A Christmas Wish, by Lori Evert, has beautiful photography, though the story is a little meh. Same with The Wild Christmas Reindeer (also a Jan Brett one). The little Advent calendar running along the borders is fantastic, but the story is just OK. We look at it for the illustrations.

Another book with excellent illustrations and a good story: The Polar Express! We’ve been into this because we’ve seen so many trains this year…

I’ll recommend two books I’d put in the “learning to be Santa” category. One, The Night Before the Night Before Christmas, by Richard Scarry, is a fun story (with classic Richard Scarry illustrations) about what happens when Santa gets mixed up, and Mr. Frumble has to deliver all the presents instead. Then — a lesser known one — I’d recommend How Santa Got His Job. Santa as a young man tried all sorts of careers, from chimney sweep to delivering packages to zoo keeper, getting discouraged at all of them, before he found his true calling.

I do like the story of The Year of the Perfect Christmas Tree, about an Appalachian family during the final year of World War I, but it tends to make me cry, so I don’t like reading it out loud. If you are into that sort of thing though, you might like it.

A book that makes us laugh: 5 More Sleeps Til Christmas, by Jimmy Fallon. A little boy keeps insisting he can’t sleep because he’s so excited, but the illustrations show a different story. I like a good children’s book where the pictures are part of the gag.

Finally, some Christmas tree tales: we like the whimsy of Mr. Willowby’s Christmas Tree, where each successive family lops the top off a too-tall tree to pass it along, and we like Pick a Pine Tree, which is a hushed and lovely rhyme about hanging the ornaments and bows. I also like Night Tree, about a family headed off into the woods to decorate a tree (in place) in the cold night, though my kids weren’t quite as enthusiastic about that as, say, The Grinch.

We’re always looking for more stories, so feel free to share your favorites here!

In 2021, I read through War and Peace one chapter at a time. Tolstoy’s chapters are very short…he just wrote 361 of them. And, sure enough, when you read one chapter a day, you finish on December 27th! That truth still feels slightly magical as I think about it. When you move at a steady pace, and just keep going, you do in fact reach the end goal.

In 2022, I’ve been reading through all the works of Shakespeare. My illustrated Shakespeare anthology is 1024 pages long, meaning that I only need to read three pages per day to keep up the pace. The font is kind of small, but it’s still quite doable in less than 15 minutes a day. Even with some of his less-great stuff, this doesn’t inspire too much resistance.

It’s been a good reading experience. I mean, obviously, it’s Shakespeare. But I’m even enjoying just the random Shakespeare references that come at coincidental times. I read Henry IV part 1, which is where the phrase “the game is afoot” comes from — and I was also, at the same time, reading This is Not A Book About Benedict Cumberbatch, where the author is obsessed with the actor who plays Sherlock Holmes in the Netflix series…and she throws in a line at some point about the game being afoot, because Sherlock Holmes always says that, and I’m like…hey!

Looking at the calendar, I see that it is…mid-October. Which means that I will, in fact, have read all the works of Shakespeare in a little over two months. So…what should I read next?

I don’t have to choose one work or one author to read over the year, but I like this steady pace of small steps, and I like the sense of completion that comes from finishing something big. I also know, after two years, that I can do it, and the idea of such a challenge feels intriguing.

I am not opposed to re-reading something, but it would have to be the right thing. (In terms of “big” books, I have read Ulysses (and The Odyssey!), Middlemarch, Anna Karenina, Moby Dick, 1Q84, and Infinite Jest…I’m not sure I truly want to spend a year re-reading any of those. I have read about 90 percent of the Bible but I don’t know that I’d want to read it straight through…and not hit the New Testament until fall.)

I could read an author’s entire works…or I could read an anthology of something (poetry?). Anyway, I welcome suggestions! I’m pretty good at sticking with something once I start it (hello, Upholder) so that makes me want to be sure I choose the right thing.

In other news: Tranquility by Tuesday launched yesterday! I’ve loved seeing people’s pictures of their copies. If you haven’t bought a copy, would you please do so? If you have, I hope you love it — and if you do, would you please post a review wherever you ordered it? I’d love to get some more reviews up at the major retailers. Thanks!

A lot of great publicity yesterday! I’ll keep adding to this list this week.

An excerpt ran at Fast Company about escaping the 24 hour trap.

I was on Hilary Sutton’s Hustle & Grace podcast — always a great conversation with her, in this case talking about practical tips for a satisfying week.

I was on the Passion Struck podcast with John Miles, talking all things passion and tranquility, and on A Mindful Moment with Teresa McKee and on Tilt Parenting, a show about raising differently wired kids hosted by Debbie Reber. I’ll send these links out in my emails later this week too!  A few others but I am trying to spread the links out!

I’ve been following someone else’s reading project that they did in 2020, and I can say, almost halfway through, that it’s been very manageable. Each play gets 5-6 days or so, but there is a buffer in between each work, and the person who created the calendar left off major holidays in 2020, so there is even more space built in. So I normally read 3-4 pages a day in my book of Shakespeare’s complete works, but if I read a little less, it’s OK. I take at least a day to read a plot summary in between each work so I know what I’m getting into. If it’s inconvenient to read my large Shakespeare book (e.g. I’m traveling) I read that chunk online.

I have not always loved it. Like any working artist who needed to get the next thing out there, Shakespeare was not nailing it every single time. (I do enjoy the commentaries that claim any of the not good stuff must not be Shakespeare…I recognize that he collaborated with people but still…can’t we imagine that sometimes he just needed to crank something out?). It’s also interesting to see, as I read through everything, how he re-used plot points and the known crowd-pleasing stuff.

But it’s also really cool to read the great works, and read some of the lesser-read works too. I just finished and actually enjoyed Pericles (incidentally, one of the works that people think Shakespeare didn’t completely write) and I probably never would have read it without my goal to read some Shakespeare every morning and to read through everything. So I’m glad I made this resolution. Now I just need to figure out what next year’s project will be! Any ideas?

In the meantime, I posted two Medium columns this week (as I attempt to get ahead of the week off…). I wrote that When It Comes to Friendships, It’s OK to be the Planner. I also wrote that we should Draw Little Conclusions, Not Big Ones.

The Before Breakfast podcast covered several topics this week, including one on thinking “50 not 60” (minutes, that is), when scheduling meetings, to “Log your pauses” so you can make sure your breaks are actually rejuvenating, and “Don’t wait to apologize.” That last one suggests that if you think an apology might be called for, it’s best to do it as soon as possible.

If you’re looking for reading material, Mary Laura Philpott’s new book, Bomb Shelter, is out next week. She tells the tale of launching a teen with serious health challenges out into the world. She also sends a very cool newsletter (sign up there).

I finally picked up a copy of Cheaper by the Dozen, so that might be my next read!

The next Best of Both Worlds Patreon online meet-up will be Monday, April 18th at noon, eastern. If you’d like to join us, please join by then!

We have been ordering like crazy from a company called Fast Growing Trees. Redbuds, cherries…the idea is to make this yard bloom in spring and very colorful in fall. I’m currently obsessed with fall-blooming camelias (some are “Yuletide” camelias) which bloom in fall to winter and hence will add color at a different time. As for normal blooming times, I’m figuring out when to go to Holland Ridge Farms to see the tulips…

Photo: Sadly, there don’t seem to be any of the magnolias blooming this year — the flowers shriveled up in the cold snap. This picture is from years past…

So…onto the next read perhaps. I’ve been re-reading The 7 Habits of Highly Effective People, though that’s on paper and I need something on my Kindle app to read in those little chunks of time, or when I’m sitting in the dark (putting the toddler to bed). I’d also like to find a novel since I prefer to have a mix going.

I never feel good about abandoning a book, or even putting aside a book for a while, especially when I know it’s a very good book. I just also know that if I’m not feeling like I want to read a book — and certain themes can do that to me — then I won’t be particularly motivated to pick it up. And if I’m not motivated to pick it up, I won’t make progress, and time has an opportunity cost. I could be using that time to read through something else that I’m in a better head space for.

If I live for 50 more years and read 50 books a year, that’s 2500 books. That is a small enough number as it is. I wouldn’t want that number to be even smaller because I tried to soldier through a book that I wasn’t feeling motivated to read.

Have you abandoned, or at least put aside, any books recently?

In other reading news: I’m currently reading Richard II (no, not Richard III – I already read that one) in my Shakespeare reading project. It’s not really one of Shakespeare’s most memorable, but I did find myself nodding in recognition to those lines I read this morning about “This happy breed of men, this little world, this precious stone set in the silver sea…” which culminates in Gaunt’s tribute to “This blessed plot, this earth, this realm, this England.” I remember this well from some airline commercial decades ago. I don’t remember which airline, but it did make me want to fly to London!

Photo: We are always choosing how to spend our time. As the bracelet says, “Choose well.”

It is now December 27th, which is 361 days later. And sure enough, I am finished.

I suppose this seems straightforward enough, but any long journey can seem overwhelming. Not so much at the beginning. We all know the saying that a journey of a thousand miles begins with a single step, and yet you have lots of energy and enthusiasm for that first step. It’s the steps at miles 46, and 75, and 126, and so forth, that seem harder.

But when there is a plan, and the plan is straightforward, and you stick with the plan, then eventually you will finish. Reading one 3-4 page chapter per day was always doable. This pace allowed me to get to know and care about the characters in this sweeping saga of Russia during the Napoleonic wars. There is a reason War and Peace is considered one of the world’s best novels.

Now I will take a few days off, and then start my next reading project on January 1st! I’m looking at reading all the works of Shakespeare. The path isn’t quite as straightforward (Shakespeare didn’t divide his work into 361 bite-sized pieces…) but I have a calendar that involves reading about the same amount, roughly 3 pages in the collection per day.

So here’s hoping that in late December of next year I’ll be finished with that. Life is, in many ways, unknowable. But there’s a reasonable chance that 2022 will happen, and that 2022 will have 365 days, and that I will be around for them, and capable of reading a little bit here and there. Since those things are likely to happen, I could end the year not having read all the works of Shakespeare, or I could end the year having done so. I’d like to aim for the latter.

Anyway (potential spoiler alerts here if you haven’t read it), Natasha is now in a blissful family-growing state. Humorously, Tolstoy deems her a bit of a supermom because…she is nursing her babies herself. Well, three of the four of them. This cracks me up given modern breastfeeding narratives. Everyone is shocked by the Countess’s decision not to use a wet nurse after baby #1. I guess breast was best, just not your own breasts.

Since my little guy turns 2 before the end of the year, it looks like I will wind up nursing for the full WHO-recommended two years. I have never gone this long before. My other children all lost interest somewhere between 12-18 months. He is not losing interest. As a toddler, and a vocal one, he has lots of dictatorial opinions about when he wants “Mommy milk” vs. “Baba milk.” He will stop and tell me “other side” when he wishes to be switched over. He made his big brother get off a certain chair this morning because he refused to be fed anywhere other than that chair.

His second birthday is just one event occurring over the next six weeks, which are just going to be…full. Christmas is coming. I’ve bought way too much that will need to be wrapped and moved. Speaking of which…we are moving! It’s looking like the first week of January. I’m trying not to think about this too much — all the logistics of moving one house to another. We’re hiring movers but it will take them two days to pack and another day or two to cart everything over. I’m thinking I will just move the family into the new house on day one of that project, and take air mattresses/sleeping bags and suitcases. That way we won’t be frantically trying to protect certain things from getting packed up because we still need them. If anyone has done a local move and has tips I welcome them.

The manuscript of Tranquility by Tuesday is back in my lap. Those edits need to be turned around by the end of January. I’m always looking for a few more stories, so if you followed any of the rules (in the project or not in the project) and have a good story of transformation you’d be willing to share, let me know! As always, lvanderkam at yahoo dot com.

I’ll be running a time-tracking challenge the second week of January (though during the move would be pretty funny — sharing those logs with the world!). If you’ve been looking for a good time to track your time, January 10-16 will have the built-in accountability of other folks doing it too.

Last night I went to my eldest child’s choir concert. I skipped my own choir practice to do this, but it seemed like the right choice — I am happy to cheer on my kid as he develops a love of something I love too. It was really good! He’s in his high school’s main chorus and then he auditioned for (and joined) their select ensemble. I posted a quick clip from their a cappella version of Linus & Lucy over at Instagram (@lvanderkam). The 10-year-old tagged along with my husband and me and she enjoyed seeing the jazz band play a few pieces too. She just picked up the trumpet this fall and has made very quick progress. It is not an easy instrument to start but after two months she can recognizably play the melody of Jingle Bells.

Not too much else to report. I’m going to a Christmas party this weekend (I’m getting to be a pro at taking the rapid at-home Covid tests that some hosts ask for). I’ll watch a livestream of a Christmas concert. I put sending my Christmas cards on my to-do list but we shall see….

I replied that it was probably a realization that we’re only going to read so many books in life. If you read 50 books a year — a high tally! — and you live for 50 more years — an optimistic guess for those of us in middle age — that is only 2500 books. That is it.

If you’re only going to read 2500 more books (or fewer!) then you want to be sure that any given book is worth including in that canon. However, you can’t be sure when you start a book if it’s going to be great. Hence the wisdom of abandoning books. If something just isn’t working for you, you want to let it go, so you can try something else that might be worth including in your life list.

I read a lot of books on the Kindle app on my phone; it’s easier than holding a book while nursing a squirmy toddler, which tends to be a big chunk of my reading time. So lately I’ve been employing the “Send a free sample” button a lot. I get about 20 pages, and can decide if I want to continue. Often I do. But sometimes I don’t. Which is just as well. You can build a rich reading life by trying broadly, but abandoning liberally. For something to make it on the 2500 book list, it should be good.

How many books do you read per year? I’ll have a low tally this year, but that’s partly because of my one-chapter-a-day reading of War and Peace.

Photo: The “Local Bookstore” 1000-piece puzzle from White Mountain.