Author Archives: Alicia Abdul

About a month ago, I started thinking about the amount of time I spent behind the scenes orchestrating my reading. It’s a part-time job, really.

I’m sure it has to do with my reading habits since I tend to mood read which means I always have a large stack of print books, ebooks, and often times even audiobooks ready for my choosing when I finish the previous book. While there are books that have a deadline to be read if I’m on a committee, writing a review for a magazine, or preparing for a class, most often the reading is keeping current on what’s being published, new books by my favorite authors, and visiting older books I hadn’t read at the time but have been recommended or returned to my pile. Of these three needs as an avid reader, I’ll break down what happens behind the scenes.

1. Keeping current on what’s being published— This means that I spent time reading professional magazines, blogs, social media, and attending curated book buzzes by publishing houses. From there, I’m picking the ones I want to concentrate my energy on because I know it will be useful in our school library, good to recommend to someone, or I want to see what the buzz is all about.
2. New books by my favorite authors— This means following them on social media and paying attention to those helpful emails that Goodreads sends about new books by previously read authors.
3. Visiting older books that I hadn’t read at the time but have been recommended or returned to my pile— I tell my graduate students in our YA lit classes that teaching the class is a double-edged sword. They’re hyping ALL THE BOOKS; some of which I haven’t read. And when they make them enticing, I have to add them to my pile again which means I’m revisiting older books that I might have intentionally decided to skip reading, only to regret it now that it’s back on my radar. It’s also looking at lists that come out such as the “end of year” best lists or when I attend a professional development session, or in talking with colleagues or students (whether in my classes or my teens at my high school library).

What comes next after the curation of titles to read is figuring out the best avenue. Here’s what happens at this juncture.

1. If it’s a new book or upcoming book by a favorite author that means I’m searching on sites like Edelweiss Plus and Netgalley, oftentimes religiously if I’m super excited about a book. Or I’m visiting my local indie bookstore and chatting with my favorite bookseller who might have the galleys. And if there seems to be a glut of titles, I might also spend some time on my local public library’s site reserving copies that are on order knowing that by the time they’re received, processed, and then sent to me, it’ll be weeks.
2. If it’s a book by my favoritest of favorite authors, it might mean a call to said indie bookstore to preorder it.
3. And visiting older books means scanning the books digital and print holdings at my public library, looking at quick access sites like Hoopla available through the library, or my own school library. And as those books come in, it’s the exciting trips to the library for pickup which might be one to two that I can walk out with tucked under my arm or lugging a big bag if they all come in at once.

Of course, they have to be read! Managing the books on and off my digital shelves via apps like Libby and Sora when there’s a deadline is as important as adjusting the amount I have at any given time in print too which I build up around vacations and gaps of time I’m able to read. Who am I kidding? There’s always time to read, which is why there are always books coming and going.

It’s a careful curation that to me feels like an orchestration of a symphony managing return dates, read-by timelines, and my exuberance at finally getting to read an anticipated title. As I said, it’s a part-time job in itself and that doesn’t even include the reading time. This careful curation should be talked about more– what kind of process do other avid readers use? How much time would you say you dedicate to the preparation of reading? I’m curious! It’s not that I feel guilty spending the time doing it when I could be reading because I recognize the need and value of culling and organizing the books to read but I do wonder if there are things others do that could help me be more efficient. There is so much that goes on behind the scenes to an active reading life.

A forty-eight hour getaway this past week to a yurt on cider house property in a section of wine country in New York made me think of work, but it wasn’t a bad thing. About a day into our stay we had visited a few wineries and a distillery and ended up at the cidery for our nightcap and meal. It’s what happened when I bellied up to the counter that made me smile.

There was a live band playing and because of their heavy traffic for food and spirits, they didn’t offer cider flights, just by the glass, so just like that I went from having four choices to only one. A lot of pressure, right? But not for the seasoned cider-tenders behind the counter. She didn’t skip a beat and started asking those basic questions about tastes and interests- I said one buzzword and she lit up, said “I’ve got the one for you I think you’ll love”, and turned to pour it. One sip and it was the perfect cider for me. It’s what I ended up drinking the rest of the night- a cider called Fruit of the Bloom with hibiscus and ginger. The flight would wait until the next day.

I realized I had been librarian-ed. Suddenly I wasn’t the one selling books to teens by conducting readers advisory, I was being sold a cider through a taste advisory. The vast experience and repertoire that comes from countless interactions like this meant that she 1) loved cider, 2) wanted me to love the cider too, and 3) had a full library’s worth of ciders to pick from to match me with one. But the fourth was the special ingredient, more than just the love of cider and wanting me to love it too, she had the passion that comes from the mix of those three elements to make someone else happy. I wanted to hug her for her excitement and realized I probably look like that to most people when I push books.