Your love is like a heatwave

[dolorosa_12]

Britain — or at least my corner of it — continues to bake. It's been at least a month since it last rained, and for the past three weeks the temperatures have been in the high twenties or low thirties every day. Given that I'm Australian, I can cope with far hotter weather than this, except for the fact that I left Australia when I was twenty-three, and therefore only spent one summer there when I was working full-time. Every other summer I had been either a child, or a university student, and school and university shut down for good during the hottest weeks of the summer. Even when I was working at my part-time jobs (I had weekend jobs from the age of fifteen), these were in patisseries/bakeries run by European chefs, so we worked intensively in the two weeks leading up to Christmas, and then closed for about a month from Christmas Eve while the chefs went to Europe to visit their families. In other words, although I lived in a much hotter country, I spent the hottest weeks every year doing little more than sitting around reading, or swimming in our backyard pool or the ocean. My poor body and brain can't take doing proper work in these temperatures!

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So far I've coped by spending as much time outside as possible, and subsisting on a mixture of ice cream, iced tap water, iced coffee, and gin. The photos on my Instagram feed should give you some idea...

Today I joined my work colleagues for a meal out at a nice restaurant near my house. We're not the most sociable bunch outside of work, but we do do things occasionally when the mood takes us, and today's meal was really nice. It's likely to be my sole social engagement for the weekend, which suits me just fine as I'm about to head off to Cardiff for a professional conference, which I'm likely to find incredibly draining (so many people! so many awkward 'networking while drinking coffee during the breaks' sessions), so I need to store up my socialising energy!

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I've also managed to complete my Goodreads reading challenge for the year. While I do tend to set myself pretty low aims, given that it generally takes me about two hours to finish most books, I am pretty happy to have reached the target at just over the halfway point of the year. While I used to be a voracious reader before I moved to the UK, my reading tailed off for a while and I was concerned at one point that I'd never really get back to my old reading habits. Last year was probably the first time that I enjoyed reading the majority of the books I read in a given year, and this year was, if anything, even better. Two factors probably contributed to this.

Firstly, I made a decision about a year ago that I would stop stressing about what I was reading (the demographics of the authors, whether it was recommended highly or nominated for awards, and, above all, whether it was the shiny new thing that everyone was talking about), and focus solely on reading things I was likely to enjoy: subgenres or tropes I liked, certain types of character dynamics that appealed to me, authors whose previous work I'd enjoyed, or books people whose tastes alligned with my own were praising. Once I stopped stressing and agonising about, in a sense, performative reading, everything felt a lot more freeing and natural. Getting over the feeling that I needed to read every single hyped up new book was particularly helpful, because I often feel that in the pro-SFF circles in which I dip my toe, there's an emphasis on newness, on chasing after the next big thing, which, while understandable, is unsustainable for someone like me who can't afford to buy hundreds of new books a year.

Secondly, I had developed a really bad habit of eating breakfast while browsing through my various social media feeds. This had an appalling effect on my mental health, to the point that I was starting every day either burning with fury, or having a panic attack (usually about Brexit). It was unsustainable, and affecting other areas of my life. I made a decision (something of a new year's resolution, really) at the start of 2018 that I would ban myself from the internet during those early hours of the morning, and would instead start the day reading a book. The effect has been extraordinary. I still go through periods of intense despair about the state of the world, but at least I'm not starting every day on a really negative note — instead I'm immersing myself in fiction. I think the next step will probably be to ban myself from social media in the evenings as well, and read during those hours too.

In any case, my Goodreads 2018 reading challenge is completed, and I'm very pleased with how it went! Is anyone else doing the challenge, or has anyone else set other kinds of reading goals for 2018? How are you all going with your respective challenges/goals?

Comments

[naye]

Congratulations on completing the Goodreads challenge! And even more congratulations on turning a negative habit into something this rewarding. ♥

Hope it cools down over there soon. We have had highs around 27, which is far more managable than anything over 30. We also bought fans for the living room and bedroom, and they have been complete lifesavers. Having moving air is the only thing that makes it possible to sleep at night.

[dolorosa_12]

Fans would be a really good idea! I have to admit I wasn't really prepared for the weather to be like this, because, well, it's the UK, and thus I hadn't considered things like fans, air conditioning (thankfully my work is air conditioned, but my house is not) or houses being designed to maximise airflow (as they are in Australia).

As I say, I can cope with much higher temperatures, but I'm used to being in holiday mode when I'm in said higher temperatures, not going about my day-to-day life!

[goodbyebird]

Oof, yeah, I just don't function during that kind of heat at all. Fortunately I've been at sea during all this nonsense. Hopefully it gives you all a break soon.

Grats on reaching your goal! And very nice to hear you've let go of the expectations and are reading the things you'd like to. Far too many books out there to be covering ground you're not even that interested in.

I'm just happy to actually be reading books again. About two thirds through my goal, but that's mostly due to my current comics binge. I will be ordering Tess of the Road once the Amazon strike ends, that seems like it will be right up my alley.

[dolorosa_12]

Glad to hear you've been able to escape the worst of the heat. As I say, I'm used to much hotter temperatures, due to growing up in Australia, but I only ever experienced those hotter temperatures when I was in holiday mode, not when I was going about my day-to-day life and working full time.

Thank you! I don't object to reading goals that are more specific than 'read X number of books', but they don't work for me, and they make reading start to feel like a public performance and almost a competition to keep up with everyone else reading the next shiny new thing — and I just don't have the kind of money to make that sustainable.

Comics definitely count towards your reading goal — I count short stories when Goodreads will let me (it's kind of weird about indexing individual short stories), and I see no reason why a work has to be novel-length in order for it to count. I'm glad my read of Tess of the Road prompted you to check it out — I read it based on the recommendation of nymeth, who lent me her copy, and it's definitely one of the best books I've read this year. I hope you enjoy it!

[falena]

Congrats on finishing your GoodReads reading challenge! I've been doing the challenge since I signed up, I've found that 52 books is a good number because it forces me to work at reading every day without being impossible to reach. This year, though, I am struggling. I'm on book 29. My will to read has pretty much vanished and right now I don't have the right mental headspace to force myself to pick up the daily habit again. Perhaps when I am on mat leave, stuck nursing a baby for long chunks of time...I know it sounds weird, but when I had my eldest daughter I read a lot.

Btw, are we friends on GR? I don't remember. I checked! Finding new books to read has become harder for me as I grow older, and my GR contacts usually help me a lot.

[dolorosa_12]

Thank you! And don't give up on your own challenge — 29 books read for a 52-book challenge is pretty good progress, especially since, as you say, you're likely to be able to read a lot more once you're on maternity leave. (I find that really impressive, by the way, as most parents I know say that they were basically unable to read, watch TV, or engage with any pop culture at all that wasn't aimed at toddlers for the entire first few years of their child's life!)

I had thought we were already friends on Goodreads, but good to have it confirmed. I get a lot of recommendations from Goodreads (and also my Twitter feed, and here on Dreamwidth). Not all my friends online have the same taste as me (or we share the same taste in some subgenres but not all), but I've certainly reached the point where I know if I'm likely to enjoy a particular book, based on which subset of my friends seems to have liked it.

[schneefink]

Congrats on completing your reading challenge :) And kudos on going through with your new year's resolution - I doubt I'd be able to resist the curiosity.
I read 30 of 52 so far, so I'm optimistic, especially because it's the holidays.

[dolorosa_12]

Thirty out of fifty-two books is pretty good - more than halfway there, with about half of the year remaining!

It's sometimes been hard to stick with the resolution, but the effect on my mental health is so bad if I don't stick with it that I've been able to resist the temptation so far.

[merit]

The heatwave certainly is lasting a very long time! It is weird to think of the UK hitting mid thirties. They tend to max out the aircon during summer in Australia, so it is only while commuting that I feel the full force of the sun (at home I mostly rely on fans). The heat does get exhausting when it goes on and on though :(

I usually set a goal of 50 books but I've had RL throw a couple curveballs in my direction this year, so I'm going to have to read a couple of books in one week in the second half of the year! I have it admit, I sometimes to get excited about the new shiny thing and try to devour it. But new books do get very expensive! And sales for the stuff I like rarely go on sale. Good thing I can toss a few old favourites into the mix.

[dolorosa_12]

Yes, I think part of the problem with extreme temperatures in the UK is that people aren't used to them, buildings aren't designed to accommodate them, and they were previously so rare that no steps have been taken to alleviate their effects. That's why on the first day of a heatwave you tend to see a lot of shirtless Brits hanging out in parks...and then on the second day of a heatwave you see a lot of sunburnt Brits!

Hopefully you'll still be able to reach your reading goal - two books a week is still fairly manageable (although I don't know how fast you normally read).

The problem with the emphasis on shiny new books is one of a mismatch of community needs and expectations. Book Twitter -- or at least the corners of it in which I hang out -- is a mixture of professional authors and other publishing types, who are in this community because they are marketing their work (and thus have an immense amount of pressure on them to hype up every new book), and fannish readers, who are there because they love books and want to talk about them. The two halves of the community overlap somewhat, but the latter seem to do so without any awareness of why the former are there, and I think sometimes feel they need to buy every new, hyped up book -- which is obviously unsustainable if you're not wealthy, or getting your books for free as review copies. I don't mind authors and publishing types marketing their work (Twitter is a professional space for them, after all), and there are several professional authors with whom I'm quite friendly and enjoy talking about books and stories, but I do resent the subtle implication that I need to buy every single hyped up new bestseller if I want to consider myself an engaged reader.

Book discussion on Dreamwidth doesn't carry any of these kinds of pressures, and is just calmer in general!

[merit]

Haha somewhat manageable to read two a week - hopefully after I finish some RL stuff! I don't think I'll need to keep up that pace for very long, just a couple weeks, to still reach that goal. Though I do get attached to doorstopper series.

I'm not involved with book twitter at all, but yeah. That does sound like it would be a touch troublesome at times. Plus some people who are getting a lot of ARCs which makes it seem like they're reading all the new stuff so easily!

[luzula]

Congrats on reaching your reading goal! My goal this year was to read 50% non-fiction, and I'm doing well with that and enjoying it as well. I was noticing lots of non-fiction piling up on my list of books to check out, which is why I chose that goal--it felt like a trend in my reading that I wanted to endorse.