Introduction

I started 2018 with no intention of making any resolutions. The only promises I made to myself for the year had to do with reading. I am participating in two reading challenges. I do not consider these resolutions because I would be reading anyway, so I am not really resolving to do anything out of the ordinary. Why not make it fun?

After an insightful conversation with a co-worker and careful consideration, I am finally going to make a resolution. My resolution this year is to begin this blog and keep up with it for the entire year. I work full time, so keeping up with writing reviews for the books I finish is extremely challenging. What better way to make a reading challenge challenging than write and blog reviews?

Here is a little background on how I have come to make this resolution. As a child, I always struggled with reading comprehension. I would start reading a book as required by the school curriculum; I did not read for fun back then. I always had to re-read pages many times to actually understand what it was I had just read. To me, books were just words on more pages than I would care to look at. By the time I made it to the end, I had already forgotten what happened at the beginning of the story. I could never make the connections I was supposed to make while reading. Let’s fast forward to high school.

One of my friends in high school was a book worm. If I am not mistaken, she currently works at a publishing company. She had an extraordinary vocabulary that made me feel like a total moron. I am not trying to be conceited, just honest, but I am not exactly an idiot. I currently hold two AS degrees. One is in Software Engineering and the other is in Paralegal Studies. The short version of that story is I chose the wrong time to be a software engineer and was laid off from my job at the beginning of the recession. Information Technology as a hiring market was an employer’s market at the time, so entry level positions were out of the question. I had to learn a new trade, hence the paralegal degree. I graduated with a 3.81 GPA out of 4.0 when I obtained my Software Engineering degree. When I obtained my Paralegal degree, I graduated with a 3.97 GPA out of 4.0. The A I received in Constitutional Law (instead of an A+) killed my perfect GPA, but I digress. Back to the topic at hand. This vocabulary of my book worm friend was extremely intimidating.

Moving forward again to my early college years, I would sit in classes and hear people make references to books I probably should have already read. Had I actually read for fun, I most likely would have. Because I transferred back home from the college I was attending in Florida and changed my major, I still had a way to go to in college when Amazon came out with their first Kindles in 2007. I had some interest in it, but not much only because I still would not read for fun at this point. I was slowly working my way towards having an interest in books.

One day a family member who owned a Kindle showed it to me. It piqued my interest a little more. Soon after, Amazon released the 2^nd generation Kindles. I have to give 80% credit to Amazon for my current reading habits because I bought that 2^nd gen Kindle. In the first year of having my said Kindle, I read 42 books.

In the years since, I have gone through phases. Some years I read like a fiend and others not so much. It is only because of the Kindle and its apps like Kindle for PC and Kindle for Android that I read as much as I do now. For many years the format of books I would read were Kindle books. In the last two years or so I started picking up paper books again. I cannot even begin to describe the difference between trying to read paper books then and now. There difference is rather remarkable in my opinion. I am still slow when reading paper books, but I read them so must faster than during my school years.

Thanks to the Paralegal degree I mentioned earlier and the GPA that came with it (my interviewer actually said my GPA is what got me in the door), I got a job in the Real Estate industry in 2012 when jobs in RI were scarce. For every open job 200-300 people were applying for that one job. I am a complete introvert, so it took about 6 months, but I finally made friends with some of my co-workers. Through my job, which requires extreme attention to detail, and with the help of a couple of my co-workers, I have discovered a skill I was not entirely sure I had. That skill is researching. Through many research opportunities, I have refined my reading skills. These abilities have spilled over into my personal life and has somewhat consumed me. This is why the last 20% credit goes to my job and co-workers for my current reading habits.

I talk to two specific co-workers regularly about reading and books. One of them is doing one of the reading challenges with me this year. The other is the reason for my resolution for this year, which finally circles us back to today.

Earlier today, we were discussing books and she made a comment about how I should make reading a job. If only I had my current reading habits when I spent 3.5 years looking for a job during the recession! Through my borderline obsessive reading, I have learned about places like Goodreads. I have also learned about beta reading. I am not going to lie. I have also been watching shows like Curse of Oak Island and Hunting Hitler and every time they show the researcher or historian, I tell myself that is something I could potentially be doing with my (relatively) new found skills. The problem is, where to start?

After much thought and ideas from my friend, I have decided to start this blog. I am hoping that if I can keep this up for at least one year, I will have gained the habit of keeping up with a blog. I have not been very successful over the years, but that is what the resolution is for. If I can keep up with it, I will then apply for the affiliation program through Amazon. If I can make a career out of blogging, I can also move onto working as a researcher. Dream big, right?

I am going to begin this blog with reviews of the books I am reading for the reading challenges I am participating in this year. Since I have already read one of the books, I will post the review from Goodreads to this blog shortly.

I apologize for the long winded first post. After this one, they should be short and sweet.

Thanks for reading!