I've been thinking a lot lately about being embarrassed about reading certain books. I'm definitely guilty of it, and it seems like there are times and places where I'm okay with reading different things. When I'm at work I don't care if I'm reading The Luxe or some other hardly literary book. I don't think I would feel comfortable reading that in the English Philosophy building, although things are starting to change for me with reading. Since I've started this blog I've started to care less about only reading great literature and care more about just reading. When I was a kid I read nonstop because I loved stories, not because I wanted everyone to think I was super smart and cool. I do miss the days in elementary school when reading was the cool thing to do though.
Maybe part of the change has been my job tutoring. When I pick books for the kids I don't necessarily pick books that are going to expand their mind, but I pick books that I know they will be interested in. That's the best way to expand their minds right? So what's wrong with reading The Jane Austen Mystery series by Stephanie Barron or The Luxe series by Anna Godbersen.
I was really ashamed last year by how little I was reading. Second semester I read a lot, but they were all books for class. When I look back at the books I tried to read during the semester it doesn't surprise me that I didn't finish many. How was I supposed to pay attention to a book that took me 2 minutes per page when I was exhausted from school and work? I've definitely changed my reading habits this semester. I am reading a lot of books, and I'm interested in all of them. They might be a little silly sometimes, but I don't watch a lot of television and that is what most people do to relax from homework.
I love to do analysis of literature, I'll admit it. I love reading novels by Charlotte Bronte, Virginia Woolf, and George Eliot. Part of me thinks that if I read only these books though my brain will just fry itself. I was so worn out after reading Middlemarch that I just had to escape into something else for awhile. Something simpler, but not bad. I can't read a bad book, I just can't do it. And plot is usually not enough to get me through a book, I have to fall in love with the characters.