Welcome to my newly formed book club section here on Oak + Oats. It is not exactly a book club because we don’t all plan to read each book together at the same time, but it is a place that I am sharing all the books I’ve read so it is a club of books in that sense… plus you can always read a book after me and come back to comment on the post!! That would kind of be the dream to continue the conversation so don’t be shy if you’re thinking that may be you! 😉 If you click through the archives you will see some old reviews that have happened over the years but just recently I am making it a new thing over here after not feeling bad about ignoring my Instagram, doing forced quiet time for Hilde in the afternoon, and in general reading real books again 😉
I finally finished The Ministry of Motherhood (my first book in this new club) after holding onto it far too long. And by far too long I mean weeks, weeks past it’s due date at the library after all three automatic renewals. It was my first library book for myself in sometime and it was a reality check on what that means. AKA I cannot just read a couple pages and then put the book on a shelf to be opened again in a year or two. The whole situation also opened my eyes to how “studious” I like to be when I read and how much pressure I put on myself to take notes, remember details, write themes, underline quotes, and essentially treat it like a school assignment.
While there is nothing wrong with being a studious reader, I finally saw how that mindset was preventing me from reading books with two busy toddlers. I felt like if I was reading it, I needed to be fully focused with several house to highlight, reflect, write, and learn which just never could happen. After several emails and a real letter in the mail telling me that the library considered it now a lost book with the option of paying the full cost or returning, I finished the book – quickly.
As I sit here to write this post, I’m already four books past that point. I decided that I was going to just read books for fun. Gleaning what I can but not searching the pages for everything there is to know. And it freed me to read all the books. Now I just have to find the time to blog about them all 😉
I started writing all this as the introduction to the next book I want to share with you (spoiler: it is going to be a giveaway too! YAY!) but then I noticed I was nearly 500 words in without even mentioning the book. Plus my brain was still wanting to share more about my new found book club plan and how I am methodically going about this journey! So I opened a new post and here I am – working on a blog post for my book club that isn’t even a book and still leaving the other four book posts to be written 😉 So here are my personal rules/ method when it comes to reading & sharing books here this year.
The Rules of Book Club
- Rotate between Non-Fiction and Fiction each time. This is so that I don’t get too lost in application! HAHA! And to keep up the drama between books in a series 😉
- Book Series get one blog post (not individual posts for each book)
- Glean what I can but don’t stress about what I miss. I always can reread a book in the future if I want to try to learn more.
- I don’t have to finish a book if I don’t want to. Just giving myself freedom to say that a book isn’t working for me. This is my time and how I want to use it.
So now that I got all this off my chest, more books coming to book club here and more books added to my library list.
PS: I’m always looking for recommendations! Share both your fiction and non-fiction books in the comments and I’ll add them to my list!