GoodReads

Somehow I signed myself up with an online organization called “GoodReads." I don’t even know what I did. I was just trying to see who was on it that I knew, and a while later I got an email from one of my email contacts saying that I had contacted them via. GoodReads to be their friend but they couldn’t even tell what my name was. Oops.

I looked over my friends’ reading recommendations, and it was fun to see what other people were reading. But then, I started feeling overwhelmed, as I noticed some friends had reviewed dozens of books! I can’t be on this list. What would I put as my reading? Moo Moo, Brown Cow—5 stars, for a good variety of farm animals to expose kids to? Or how about 5 stars for Quick as a Cricket, for the number of times per day Eliza wants me to read it to her (even though she usually just likes to skip to her favorite pages with the lamb and the shrimp)? I have read an impressive number of pages, it’s just that those pages all come from repeat reads of books with 10 or less pages.

What non-board-books would I list? I have an embarrassingly short recent reads list. Maybe I could get Danielle (an amazingly regular reader who puts away at least one real book a week) to sum up a few for me, and I’ll let her review them under the pseudonym of “Janel Williams.” Or maybe I could “review” a few hot new reads, my own blog entries. Ha! So much for classic literature. So much for scholarly discussion with my peers. At this rate, I’d be better off just leaving my name as “anonymous.” Then no one can feel bad for my illiteracy.

It’s not that I don’t like reading. I get kind of obsessive when I start a new book. My brother-in-law, Bryce, loaned me a Clive Cussler, then a Michael Crichton, and I flew through those in a day or two…aided by a few near sleepless nights, followed by a few ultra-grumpola days. I just get too involved in reading. It’s hard for me to put books down sometimes. And from this comes my “feast or famine” reading routines.

I am reading two books right now, but not making much headway on either. Mao and Dare to Discipline. You just have to be in the mood for those (although, I’ve found, there’s no more inspiring time to read Dare to Discipline than when your three-year-old is acting up). I have heard Mao is a great read, and it would be nice to get through it before its second renewal runs out at the local library, and the librarians come hunt me down for my 5^th fine in one month. (I just cannot find Mary Had a Little Lamb anywhere, and am really disturbed about its purported $7 value. It was clearly not worth that much to my kids when they buried it somewhere. Also, a few weeks ago we drove off with a CD holder of DVDs on top of our car, so the library is down a few kids’ movies, and we’re down more than a few bucks to replace them.)

So the burning question remains: Should I keep my pride, and remain an anonymous non-contributor on GoodReads? Or should I suck it up, and list my pitiful contribution to the literary world (omitting, of course, embarrassing obsessions of the past (long past) like Sweet Valley Twins and The Babysitters Club), in hopes of being inspired by my truly literary friends?