Rediscovering my reading mojo

I've always loved reading.

I used to completely devour books when I was in school. I'd read at the dining table, in the bathroom, in church, while everyone else in my family was watching TV, and in bed late at night with the help of the handy streetlamp outside my window. I also used to read in the car if I was in the middle of a particularly good book, even though I knew it would make me feel horribly sick by the time I got to the end of the journey. That's dedication for you.

After finishing school, I decided to study English Literature at Cardiff University. My degree was entirely focused on reading and writing and I absolutely loved it.

Quite predictably perhaps, I fell out of love with reading for a few years after I finished my degree. I'd almost forgotten what it was like to read for pleasure without needing to analyse and annotate significant words and phrases, and I found it quite difficult to get out of the habit.

Thankfully, after I had a Kindle for Christmas in 2012, I very quickly became a bookworm again and went on to discover lots of new authors and genres over the next few years.

I set myself a target of reading 50 books in 2015, and I did it! I set myself the same target for 2016 and fell four short, but 46 books in such a turbulent year still felt pretty impressive.

Unfortunately, in 2017 and 2018, I really struggled to lose myself in my beloved books. 2017 was a horribly difficult year where I only managed to read about 20 books. 2018 was a better year on the whole, but a lot of my brain space was taken up with starting and settling in to my new job which meant I only read 14 books throughout the whole year. These might sound like big numbers to some people, but for me they were pitifully low.

I started 2019 with a firm determination to rediscover my reading mojo, and I'm pleased to report that it's going well so far. I've already read 6 books since the beginning of January and I've got a couple of pre-ordered books arriving this week from two of my favourite authors.

My main motivation for rediscovering my insatiable love for books was realising that reading is a huge part of who I am. It helps me to escape into another world when I've had a stressful or upsetting day, it keeps me away from aimlessly scrolling through my phone, and it provides my introverted brain with valuable 'recharge' time.

I've started documenting the books I've read in 2019 on my Instagram stories with a little one sentence review. I'm always looking for recommendations, so if you're reading this and you also share the books you've read on Instagram or on your blog, please let me know!

On that note, I'm going to turn my laptop off and get back to my book.