When I'm trying to add something into my life that I "want" to do, but I have so many things that I "need" to do, I have to set time aside on my calendar. If I'm really busy, I'll set timers to start the activity and a timer to end the activity so I don't feel guilty for not getting back to the things I need to get done.

I recommend starting with small chunks of time, 15-30 minutes 1-2 times a day. There are programs that you can put on your phone or laptop that will limit your access to certain apps or websites. I have a friend who has on that has a pop up when she tries to go onto social media that asks if this is how she wants to spend her time. It also has a timer that has a snarky comment that will pop up every 15 minutes.

I don't skip or skim when reading. If I find myself wanting to skip ahead then that usually means the book is not interesting and I'll consider DNFing it, or doing what I call a slow read. A slow read for me is a book I'll read in small sessions over a long period of time while reading other books at my normal pace.

I do believe that each of us gets to choose how we interact with books, and I try to stay judgment-free about how others interact with books and try to ignore if anyone has an opinion on how I interact with books.

I know there is also a belief that we need to be "productive" all the time. I don't subscribe to that philosophy and choose to spend some of my time just enjoying what life has to offer.

I can't recall ever being asked by people outside of my family why I "waste my time" reading, but if I ever was asked, I would probably respond that I have created a life that allows me to spend time doing what I want to do, and reading is top of that list.

We are usually the product of the environment we grew up in.

My parents were divorced and I was raised by my father who highly valued education and was a lifelong learner. My sisters were raised by my mother, who valued homemaking and birthing children. I was teased about reading so much, I was told the only reason to go to school was to find a husband. When we were raising our kids my sisters would complain that the schools gave too much homework and allowed their children to not do it and blame the school when they would fail classes. My kids went to college and both still love to read and take classes.

I'm retired and I'm the only one of 5 siblings that read and continues to actively learn new things. My siblings continue to mock me about it.

I think public figures expect the public to reach out to them, but everyone is an individual and some people will love the feedback while others may feel it's a burden. I would think that those that are bothered by public attention have found ways to filter it. They may have an employee or publisher who reads it and responds to those that need a response.

I would check to see if they have a website, that should have info on how to contact them. If they are on social media you can reach out to them there or ask what is the best method to send correspondence.

I love mysteries too and sometimes I'll actually make notes to keep track of characters.

I really want a format for a "murder board" something that will allow me to keep track of all the characters and make notes about the crime and clues.

Because I use the library as my primary source for books, what is available usually dictates what I read next. This year one of my goals is to read the last of the 20 or so books that moved with me 3 years ago, I have 2 slots per month for those and I don't put much thought into which one to read next.

I intentionally read a wide variety of genres and one thing I've learned is there are boring and poorly written books in all genres and great stories and characters I fall in love with in all genres. However, some genres are harder for me to find gems in.

When I was in school, horror especially the occult was my favorite genre and that continued into my young adult life. Work then required a lot of nonfiction reading on topics of health, psychology, mindset, and business building. I retired a few years ago and I'm actively exploring a wide variety of genres and authors from around the world. I don't research much about the books I read I prefer to go in without expectations and for the most part, I've been pleasantly surprised by the books I've read.

I will say, last year when I was in a book club that had a "genre of the month challenge" romance was the month with the most poorly written books, I did find a few that were written well and had a good story line.

Your goal, your rules. I personally don't count a book read unless I read it all, but I don't think it's cheating if you count a book that you read the parts you wanted to read.

I set a variety of reading goals each year and I like to be clear on my own rules for myself, but I also reserve the right to change the rules later if what I set up stops working for me.

When I participate in a reading challenge and my reading log, I only count books that I've read from start to finish. However some goals that I set for myself I will count partially read books. For example, this year I have a goal to read or DNF the last 20 books that are on my physical shelf and that moved with me 3 years ago. If I start the book and decide I don't want to finish it, it goes into my pile of books to get rid off and I check it off my list.

I recommend you decide what your goal is for that book and then log it in whatever manner feels right to you.

I'll say I do like that I can mark a book as DNF on Storygraph. You can also create a shelf on GoodReads for partial reads or DNF books, but only if you feel the need to keep a record of it.

I didn’t enjoy it, but it was enthusiastically recommended to me by a few people, so clearly others did enjoy it.

Too many people don't want to believe their history is based on aggression, slavery, or violence. I think they think they'll sleep better if they can pretend it was someone else who started the violence.

I do sometimes. I love that I can look it up from my Kindle very easily. I read a lot of books by authors from other countries and I often look words up as I’m reading. Often I can guess at the meaning, so I usually wait for a breaking point in my reading and go back to look it up.

Do you completely forget the book or is it just not at the top of your mind?

I read a lot and for a few weeks I can remember a lot of details about each book I read, but then they kind of move lower in my memory. If someone asks me about the book if I see the cover or read a bit of the book summary I will recall a lot more details of the book, but some of it will just be lost over time.

This is the same with movies I watch, TV shows I watch, interactions I have with people etc. My husband says his brain is like a computer hard drive, you can only store so much on it or it starts to slow down, so we forget things that aren't important to us.

I recently switched from GoodReads to StoryGraph and love that we have the option of 1/4, 1/2, 3/4, or full stars.

>blog post by a librarian

Great post, thank you for sharing.

I rate by how much I enjoyed it and how likely I am to pick up the next in the series or try other books by the same author. Although I'm aware that the ratings are public, I rate for my own information.

3* and 4* are my most common ratings, it has to be pretty bad for me to want to rate it lower and it has to make a big impression for me to give it 5*

I'm finding the less I know about authors the better I like them. It seems so many authors and other "celebrities" have said or done horrible things.

Like any other type of media people often try things that others in the peer group try. Reading the same book as your peers can give you something to talk about and share.

I ask the same question about tv shows like Friends and Real Housewives. They are wildly popular and I don't understand their appeal.

I'm a retired Health and Life Coach and I've read a lot of self-help, motivational, finance, health, communication, business, productivity, and time management books. It is easy to find them written by women if you look for them.

There is a lot of crap out there, many coaches and gurus are told to write books to add to their credibility and many are not helpful. I will say that there are absolutely some that have made an impact on my life and the lives of clients over the years.

I will say that to get the most of them I treat them more like workbooks. I often read through them once to see if they are worth my time, then I go through them in more detail, doing the exercises, journal prompts, setting up the systems etc.

I do have a few that I like to read every year or two to keep me on the right track.

I don't believe reading books that don't interest you is giving up. The only time I will push myself to read a book I'm not enjoying is when I have decided that specific book has value in my reading it.

If you are trying to respark your joy in reading, I recommend reading books that you enjoy. I had a goal last year of reading outside of my comfort zone, I pushed myself to read a couple of books early in the year but after slogging through a couple of horrible books I joyfully DNF'd other books and just looked for another book to fill that slot in my challenge.

Thank you. I'm having so much fun now that I have more time to read and don't have to read for work.

I used to use GoodReads to track my reading, my main focus in the past was to log and rate books I read for work. I was a coach and I liked to give book referrals to my clients this was a great way to keep track of the books I read and give exact titles and authors.

I've retired and now I get to read for fun. I recently switched to StoryGraph and love all the graphs created by my reading list. I read a lot more books than I used to and I don't want to get into a rut by reading too many of the same types of books. The graphs help as do all the challenges the site offers.

I recently created a challenge for myself to read fiction and nonfiction books by authors from 195 countries. I'm using a journal to keep track of these books since I expect it will take me several years to complete.

Trying to decide what to read next used to be a big problem for me. Now I join or create challenges for myself. I like to have a "theme" each year for reading. I get almost all of my books from the library, and I read an average of 10 books per month. I read/listen in all formats print, ebook, and audiobook. I tend to keep my hold queue pretty full since many of the books I'd like to read have long waitlists.

Last year I wanted to explore genres outside of my normal go-to books. I chose 6 fiction and 6 nonfiction genres with the goal of reading 2 books from each genre. I also joined an online community that had a Genre of the Month Challenge that gave me a new genre each month and 4 prompts to complete by reading books.

This year I want to explore authors from other countries. I created my own long-term challenge to read fiction and nonfiction books by authors from 195 countries. I expect this will take me several years to complete. I also started using StoryGraph and joined a few other challenges. One challenge has prompts to help me read books on my TBR list.

I keep a list of books that I notice on Reddit or other places on my phone and when I don't have a lot of books reserved I just open my list and add a few more books. I try to keep a mix of books in my queue, but if I feel I'm reading too many of a mood or genre I'll make more effort to add variety.

I finished 20 in January.

9 books toward my goal to read books by authors from other countries.

3 books toward my goal of finishing 3 series that I've been working on

4 books toward the goal of reading books I own

2 books for book clubs

2 books to learn something new

I've been on nearly 20 cruises and although the things you mention are true, it seems the author is biased and trying to make it seem worse than it is.

TLDR: I love cruising, it sounds like the book is over-sensationalized, but cruising isn't for everyone.

I was also enlisted in the US Navy and my ship did a 6-month WestPacific cruise. On land many military jobs are 8 hours M-F, if you do shift work it is usually 8-hour shifts as well. In port, I worked a typical work week. As soon as we set sail our work hours changed to either 12 hours on 12 hours off or a 16-hour workday 7 days a week, with reduced hours on Sundays. Boredom and unstructured time are not good for people who are confined to a small space.

If you look at the ratio of passengers and crews on most cruise lines you'll see that there is usually 1 crew member for every 2-3 passengers. Not all crew member's jobs are directly related to the customer's experience, there are entire departments dedicated to cleanliness and maintenance. Because most ships have services 24/7 it is perpetually being cleaned and repaired.

Although the vast majority of cruise lines are registered under foreign flags that doesn't mean there isn't a standard they are required to meet. For a cruise ship to take on passengers at US ports the US Coast Guard requires them to meet the International Convention for the Safety of Life at Sea (SOLAS). This is a strict set of rules to ensure passenger safety and crew competence. The one cruise ship that I'm aware of that flys under the US flag is the NCL Pride of America which cruises the Hawaiian Islands. The Jones act requires any non-US ship to visit at least 1 foreign port on each sailing. This ship had a primarily American crew and although the ship was practically brand new, it was the dirtiest and worst maintained ship I'd ever been on, and that includes the 40 year old US Navy ship I spent 2 years on.

On most itineraries, you are in port for several hours most days. The ship is filled with activities and events all day, from live performances in the theater, dance lessons, cooking lessons, gyms, pools, spa, yoga classes, and a kids club, you can even attend AA meetings.

There is a Dr and a sickbay available on all large ships. I'm not sure what size the ship needs to be for this to be a requirement. Keep in mind that seniors are a large part of the passenger list on many cruise ships. They have the ability to medivac people from the ship if needed.

I've never been concerned about food-borne illness, of course, this can happen to any restaurant, but to have passengers get sick from food would not be good for business. The world is too connected these days. There are entire businesses dedicated to reporting on each sailing of each ship. There is a problem with some viruses, for example, Norovirus is common on some ships and once a ship gets infected it is a big challenge to irradicate it from the ship, because the ship is never empty, they are moving passengers on as they are moving passengers off. You can often find which ships are having this problem ahead of time and take precautions or avoid the ship. We experienced this on a cruise a few years ago.