A couple of days ago I opened up my NetGalley shelf determined to start catching up with all the books I have on there to review. It’s been a few months since I actually sat down to read a book, and there are about 5 books I’ve read but have yet to review. Fortunately, I make notes in the ebook on whichever device I’m using, and more recently that’s been the Kobo.
Some books, though, are so old I don’t have a backup copy of them, and I have to revert back to reading those on the Kindle. Since NetGalley added Kobo to their compatible devices, I’ve refused to take a book that can only be read on Kindle. But these older books are my own darned fault.
In recompense, I’ve tried to take one book from the top, i.e. the most recent, then one book from the bottom, i.e. the oldest, and that’s been working quite well with the catching up. Only if a book is part of a series have I gone back to the beginning and read the first instalment. If I don’t already have the first in a series from NetGalley, then I buy it.
That caught me out only once just recently, when I had several books in one series but not the first one, so I went and bought it. Reader, it was dreadful. And if the author wasn’t already an accomplished writer in a different genre, I would have sworn black was blue that it was written by AI. Then I wondered if perhaps this was a series she’d written long ago, when she was just starting out, and it hadn’t made it out of her drawer.
As a result, the rest of the books I had in the series from NetGalley went back as ‘will not review’. There was no way I could write anything positive about this particular series and (a) it wasn’t fair on either the author or the publisher, and (b) I might have been in trouble had I suggested the AI thing.
Since then, if I’ve bought the first book in the series but can’t read it on my Kobo, then that book has gone back and I’ve sent the rest back to NetGalley as ‘will not review’, with the reason stated as ‘can’t read the first in the series on my Kobo’.
During our house move, I got behind on backing up any books I could, so there are a few in limbo now, but I’d still like to read them. So I went back to the oldest book on the shelf, tried to open it on a Kindle Paperwhite, and it was illegible. I couldn’t even read it on the app it was so outdated, and that one went back to NetGalley as ‘will not review’, with the reason stated as ‘can’t even read on my Kindle’.
Hoping it wasn’t the first in the series, I opened the next one on the list by the same author, which (a) turned out to be the first in the series, and (b) DID open on my Paperwhite. I started to read it on Tuesday.
Now, since I rejigged my diary I actually get 3 reading hours or part-hours throughout the day. The first with my dirty cuppa at 8am after I’ve done my 10-minute writings (yes, I rebooted that this week too). The second during my new breakfast hour of 10am — 11am. And the third during my dinner hour, which has reverted back to 3pm — 4pm. On Tuesday that worked really well.
Yesterday…yesterday I started reading and I couldn’t put it down!
Why have I only now discovered Minette Walters?
There are switching viewpoints all over the place, a particular pet hate of mine, and yet I can’t put the book down.
So yesterday disappeared amid a delicious haze of binge-reading.
I still managed to wash the dishes from the night before in shifts (aka 10-minute Pomodoro breaks), leaving one lot to drain while another lot soaked in hot, soapy water. I still managed to feed the birds, feed the dog, and do my daily exercises throughout the day (also in snatched 10-minute breaks). And I still managed to bake 4 regular blueberry muffins and 2 dozen mini blueberry muffins. (I need a 12-hole mini muffin tin as well as the 24-hole one so I can make 3 dozen.)
But the rest of the day? The republishing and the editing and even today’s blog post? Nah. Reading.
Let’s see if today’s tasks fare a little better, eh?
This post appears on Words Worth Writing and Medium.
