The Bibliollama

I've missed a couple of weeks' worth of Book Blogger Hop prompts, so let's play catch up!

May is Mental Health Awareness Month. Are there any books with themes or characters dealing with issues related to mental health that you have found to be enlightening or comforting It might be a bit of a cliche answer, but I've found Matt Haig's books to be both comforting and helpful, especially some of his mental health non-fiction. I read The Comfort Book and Notes on a Nervous Planet when I was really struggling with anxiety and agoraphobia, to the point where I couldn't leave the house. There was just something so calming, so comforting and so relaxing about them that genuinely helped soothe my brain.

I recently read The Midnight Library - a book I'd been wanting to read for AGES but had been putting off because I got nervous I wouldn't like it (I hadn't been thrilled by one of Haig's other fiction books I read). It was, however, utterly fantastic and I gave it 5 stars. The descriptions of Nora's depression resonated so strongly with me.

Do you consider yourself a book collector or a book hoarder? Oh, definitely a collector. The collection looks a little hoard-like at the moment; there's piles of books everywhere because I'm sorting them, cataloguing, reshelving and figuring out a) how many more bookshelves I need and b) where they're going to go.

Summer often means more time for reading. Do you have a list of books you're eager to start reading during June's warm days? Do you have a summer reading goal? I'm not really a seasonal reader, but I did post my current summer TBR earlier this week.
I don't think I have any specific summer reading goals, other than continuing to read most days and try to focus a little on some of my reading challenges that aren't very far along.

Will society suffer in the future as a result of the younger generations' lack of reading? OK so I don't have any first hand knowledge of this, but based on what I've seen/heard, I'm going with yes. I also don't think it's the actual issue at hand, but rather a symptom of something much larger - although I can't pin down what that actually is. Like, it would be super easy to blame social media for 'rotting kids brains' and 'causing short attention spans' but then you only have to look at the size of the bookish community on social media which is filled with readers of all ages - including, yes, the younger generations. I'm sure I've even seen stats that things like TikTok are inspiring teens/new adults to start reading and reading is trending upwards again

There's a whole other rant about the way social media works and preys on people and oh I wish how it worked like it did 5, 10, years ago when it just showed me the people I'm following in chronological order - my social media experience is very carefully curated, I met pretty much my whole friends group through social media and lets not forget I met my fiancee on AO3 and Tumblr. But, as I said, that's a whole other thing... it is connected tangentially in that it's a symptom of the same larger issue that's affecting society.

I don't know if 'suffer' is necessarily what's going to happen with society. Society is currently undergoing such a huge change through all levels and because we're right in the middle of it, we can't see the end of it and it's scary and it's easy to blame 'the younger generations'. I'm a Millennial - we're still getting blamed for everything after all!

I don't know that I've actually answered the question - the answer is both yes and no and it's complicated - but this is the post that it inspired!

My reading list for the coming week looks something like:

finish BBC Science Focus June 2024 (currently 28%)
finish Neil Gaiman - Neverwhere (currently 81%)
finish Alix E Harrow - The Ten Thousand Doors of January (currently 19%)
finish Neil MacGregor - A History Of The World in 100 Objects (55%)

read Ruth Goodman - How To Be A Victorian (currently 22%)
read Thomas Halliday - Otherlands (currently 14%)
read Emily Henry - Book Lovers (currently 29%)
read Ronald Hutton - Stations of the Sun (currently 53%)

start Carrie Fisher - The Princess Diarist
start Joanne Fluke - Chocolate Chip Cookie Murder (and try to finish because it's due back to the library next week and I can't renew because someone's reserved it!)
start Nicola Lewis - Em & Me
start Nancy Warren - Lace & Lies

I've also started the full cast audiobook of Good Omens. Audiobooks aren't something I usually listen to, I zone out but I need an audiobook for a challenge and figured this was a good option. We'll see how it goes!

I'm slowly working on bringing down the number of books I've started but haven't finished. It's currently sitting at 13 and I ideally want to get it to 10 or under (that's the number of different sources I have for books - and will be the subject of a later blog post where I ramble about how I choose the books I'm reading)

My reading goals for the coming week look something a little like:
finish Juliet Ashton - The Sunday Lunch Club (currently 44%)
finish Sharon Blackie - If Women Rose Rooted (currently 42%)
start Jeremy Clarkson - Diddly Squat: Pigs Might Fly
finish Neil Gaiman - Neverwhere (currently 40%)
start Alix E Harrow - The Starling House
finish Emily Henry - Book Lovers (currently 29%)
finish Milly Johnson - The Teashop on the Corner (currently 57%)
finish Matthew Reilly - Scarecrow (currently 59%)
finish Stacey Solomon - Happily Imperfect (currently 34%)
start Nancy Warren - Lace & Lies
(to be fair, I'm spending over 6 hours on trains on Tuesday so it's not as daunting as it seems!)

What's on your reading list for the week?