Hi everybody!
Welcome to the Quick Thought #20! To read all of my previous Quick Thoughts, click here.
In today’s Quick Thought, we are going to be discussing “Book Hangovers”!
A “Book Hangover” is when you read a fantastic book and have trouble picking up a new one because you are still thinking about the events that occurred in the previous one you read.
I suffer from book hangovers a lot, which leads to a lot of the reading slumps that I have over the course of a year. Sometimes I can read literally five books in around two and a half weeks, but other times I will read one amazing book, but then analyze the book over and over again in my head, resulting in not picking another one up until weeks/months later! Since I suffer from “Book Hangovers” so much, I thought I would share my top tips on getting over them.
Tip #1: Have a Reading Schedule and DO NOT change up your schedule no matter what!
Sometimes, one of the best ways I can get over a book hangover is to use a planner or type out in your calendar a strict reading schedule over the next few weeks. I will type out what book I want to read on each day, and how many pages I want to read. Most of the time when I do this, I will either finish the book right on time, or read it even quicker by not following the strict page number counts. That way I am technically ahead of my schedule, which motivates me to pick up even more books in a shorter time span.
Tip #2: Choose a New Format to Read on!
Whenever I am struggling to pick up a new physical book, I like to download one onto my iPad to read. Whenever I read on my iPad, I tend to finish the book a lot easier since I can’t really see how much of the book I have left. Like the first tip, this makes me read a lot faster and encourages me to pick up another book once I am finished the first one. This also includes audiobooks and any other form of book you can think of, but reading on my iPad is my second favourite format to read when I don’t really feel like reading from a physical book.
Tip #3: Plan out a TBR List with Books You Will be Motivated to Read
A TBR (To-Be-Read) list is one of my favourite ways to chose a new book to read after suffering from a “book hangover”! While I post a monthly TBR post on the first of every month, sometimes none of the books will appeal to me at certain times during the month. This is why I like to have a continuous TBR list on my Goodreads.com page. Some of the books I added date back to 2013, and some may have even been added just yesterday! Either way, I am always able to find an interesting book on my TBR list that I may have forgotten I even added onto the list.
Tip #4: Re-read One of Your Old Favourite Books
I have a TON of my favourite books on one particular spot of by bookshelf that I will reach for if I’m ever in a “Book Hangover” or reading slump. These books will motivate me to read more after them, just as I did when I first read them quite a long while ago.
This is a picture of my current favourites shelf, which has some of my favourite books of all time on it!
Tip #5: Ask for a book recommendation that is similar to the book you just finished
“If you like this ___, check out _____.” is one of my favourite features in Chapters/Indigo stores. If I see a book in the “If you like this …” section that I have read and really enjoyed, I will tend to look at the other books to see if any of them interest me. Nine times out of ten, I will pick up one of the recommended books and enjoy them almost as much as the original book! If you don’t have something like this in your local bookstore(s), I recommend searching up other book bloggers that read similar things that you like to read and check out their book recommendations. Most of the time, the blogger will have seasonal recommendations that they write several times during the year, or the will make recommendations based on different genres of books. If you are interested in some of my book recommendations, you can check them out here. As always, if your in the mood for a new book but don’t know what to chose, tweet me @readingreadingr and I will get back to you with a great book recommendation ASAP!!
These are my top-5 tips on getting out of a “Book Hangover”! If you have some of your own tips that I didn’t mention, post them in the comments!
Don’t forget to follow me on Instagram and Twitter for sneak peaks of new blog posts, and to see which book(s) I am currently reading!
Good Night Book Owls!
Reading, Reading, Reading 