I’ve maintained some sort of book presence in the online sphere since… forever. Consistency has always been an issue of mine. I tend to cycle through my hobbies so if I’m reading, that’s pretty much all I’m doing and for me, that’s a recipe for burn out. Learning to vary my activities and pace myself has been an ongoing process. One thing I do know, however, is that I’m at my best when I’m creating things and when I’m talking about the things that I love and this is the reason I’ve brought back my book blog: I’m here to create things and talk about the things that I love. If you also like doing this, then I think we’re gonna be great friends.
For the first post, I thought I’d talk a little about myself and what you’ll find here. As for me, you can get a brief rundown here. I tend to read mostly YA fiction, fantasy, scifi, and mystery novels with a dash of romance thrown in. I read in all formats, but lately audiobooks have been working really for me. The strangest thing is that I used to not be able to focus on audiobooks! In the past, they put me straight to sleep. I’m not sure what changed or how we got here, but now I’m pretty much always listening to an audiobook as the background for my daily life. I listen as I’m cleaning, when I drive, while I work and write. It’s incredible and I’m so happy that switch just flicked on for me one day. I also love my Kindle and have a physical collection of over 2,000 books, which is where my site name came from.
A rumor circulated a while back that if you owned over 1,000 books, you were considered a library. In my excitement, I googled and found out that wasn’t true, of course, so I was a library, but then not a library– an unlibrary, if you will! It’s also a nod to one of my favorite works of classic literature, Alice in Wonderland, because if you’ve read it, you’ll know that they celebrate an unbirthday and when one of my best friends and I were coming up with names for my blog, she threw out The Unlibrary as a contender and I instantly loved it. So that’s where we are. The Unlibrary. I joke that my nine cats act as librarians here and why shouldn’t they? They enjoy it when I read aloud to them and they lay on my books all the time– that counts, right? Well, it counts here anyway, in The Unlibrary, where the books live. Where things are and are not. Where the strange and silly combine in a wonderful world of whim. I know, I know. I get carried away. I’ll stop. For now. 😄
In any case, if you’ve found yourself here, I hope you stay a bit. I hope you find this a place you can wander to now and then. And I hope whatever finds you is exactly what you need.
You’ll mostly see book reviews and bookish discussions here, but I’m also a writer working on a few different projects so you’ll also get bits and pieces of my writing process. I’m excited to really dig and find out what stories are lurking in me. I’ve always wanted to put myself out there, but the thing about being a reader is that I always run into such amazing books that I think what could I possibly contribute to the world that would ever be as good as this? Imposter syndrome, you know? But this is the year we abandon the pursuit of perfection and stop doubting ourselves. We can do it. I know we can. Yes, I’m talking to you too!
‘Why, sometimes I’ve believed as many as six impossible things before breakfast.’ – Lewis Carroll, Alice in Wonderland
I’ve decided to become an expert in believing impossible things and I invite you to join me in the adventure. Imagine what we can accomplish, what we can make? Sounds like a great time to me.