Book Nerd

Book Nerd

The pandemic was awful for multiple reasons that I don’t need to relive here, but one area in which it actually improved my life is that it got me back into reading books. To be fair, I was never a gigantic reader, although I did go through a few phases—I read the Harry Potter series (I’m still a proud Potthead to this day) and somewhere along the way got really into books by Tim O’Brien, Dan Brown and Khaled Husseini, to name a few. But it wasn’t until the pandemic handed me three months without work, with not a whole lot else to do, that I fell deeply in love with reading. 

Years before the pandemic my father gifted me a book for my birthday. It was a daunting 936 pages long and although I appreciated the gift, I’m sorry to say that it collected dust for years. I just wasn’t ready. But then the world shut down and I found myself reaching for things that I hadn’t previously created time for. That book was one of them.

I was hooked from literally the first page and ended up devouring the entire book in less than two weeks. It’s a little ironic to think that the gigantic book that remained untouched on my shelf for years would end up becoming my favorite book of all time. 

If you’re curious, that book was Shantaram. Have you read it?

Soon I found myself reading and listening to so many books that I needed a system to keep track of them all. I could hardly remember what I finished last week!

That’s when I found Goodreads. 

Not familiar with Goodreads? It’s an online book community and database where you can rate, review, research and share book recommendations with other users. Kind of like social media for book nerds. 

I love it. 

Although the one thing I don’t love is the extremely limiting 1-5 star rating system. There’s so much nuance to books and I often find that such a simple 1-5 rating cannot possibly represent, with any level of accuracy, how I felt about a book. Sure, some books fit into that system nice and tidy, but many don’t. So, in order to combat the lack of nuance, I’ve had to get really clear on what each star represents to me. 

Here’s my rating system:

1 star: Horrendous, boring, poorly written or a book I couldn’t bring myself to finish.

2 stars: Not the worst book I’ve ever read but pretty bad. I was able to finish but felt it was a waste of time.

3 stars: I thought this book was fine, not a total waste of time, but not something I’d likely recommend to others.

4 stars: I really enjoyed this book, am glad I read it and would absolutely recommend it to others.

5 stars: I was completely hooked by this book, got attached to characters, loved the storyline and thought the writing style and overall quality were particularly high level. I was sad when the book ended and would highly recommend it to others. 

I’m pretty strict with my 5 star ratings and don't hand them out loosely, although, oddly enough, I have recently upgraded a few 4 stars to 5 long after finishing the book. 

And that's because one of the things that my rating system can’t account for is how often I think about that book after finishing it. If it crosses my mind often, instills warm, happy or fond feelings in me, or continues to impact me in some way long after reading it, that ought to count for something, right?! I think so.

It isn’t just the books that I love, I love the book-focused conversations with friends and family, sharing and receiving recommendations, the calm, quiet ritual of reading before bed—shoot, I even enjoy watching book review videos on social media! Yep… I think it’s safe to say that I am officially a book nerd. And I'm proud of it.

“Writing and reading decrease our sense of isolation. They deepen and widen and expand our sense of life: They feed the soul. When writers make us shake our heads with the exactness of their prose and their truths, and even make us laugh about ourselves or life, our buoyancy is restored. We are given a shot at dancing with, or at least clapping along with, the absurdity of life, instead of being squashed by it over and over again. It’s like singing on a boat during a terrible storm at sea. You can’t stop the raging storm, but singing can change the hearts and spirits of the people who are together on that ship.” – Anne Lamott

P.S. What are some of your favorite books?

P.P.S. I’ve included a link to Shantarm below if you’re curious to check it out. I’m about due for a re-read myself.

P.P.P.S. If you’re a book lover and would like to become friends on Goodreads I’d be thrilled! I’ve provided a link below so you can easily find me. The user interface is rather clunky, but I’m certain we can figure it out ;)