I am an avid reader. My sister, not so much. She had kids before me. So, I started giving all my nieces and nephews a book as well as a toy for Christmas each year to ensure they had books. I needn’t have worried. Anyway, when everyone started getting older it got harder, of course. Two years ago, I considered stopping the tradition (kids sophomore in high school through 3rd grade). Before announcing it, the sophomore told me what she really wanted for Christmas was for me to preorder this book for her. A different niece told me how much she loved that I gave them books. So, yeah, I still get them books.

I mostly listen to them in the car or while shopping and sometimes cooking. In the car, they can be through the speakers. Otherwise I have to have them playing through ear buds. If I don’t, I lose focus as well.

It sounds like you need to build resilience. Think of it like this when a toddler doesn’t get what they want, what do they do? They through a fit. An adult (generally) not so much. That is because of emotional resilience. The adult has learned how to regulate their feelings and take the steps they need to in order to ultimately get what they want. That skill wasn’t learned overnight. In order to build that resilience with reading, you have to enjoy and finish books first. If you like fantasy, read fantasy. Once you’ve developed a habit of reading and built up your mental chops for reading a bit, then you can throw in a book that’s not your jam but will help you grow from time to time. At first, these books will be hard because you don’t like them. So, pick easier or shorter ones. You’ll get so those are tolerable in between the books you like. After a bit more of this, you start branching out more. That may be all you ever do. Or you may discover a new genre that you adore. The key is that it should never be something you force yourself to do all the time. Push yourself out of your comfort zone occasionally, yes, but if it’s a hard slog all the time, it’s not sustainable nor is it good for you.

With some non-fiction, I’ve found audiobooks are easier. If there’s a bunch of technical/impossible to pronounce words, I’ve found listening to them didn’t interrupt my flow and made it easier to understand.

I do. In late 2017, someone asked me how much I read. My answer was, “A lot, I guess?!?!?!??” That person mentioned Goodreads. I became curious about how much read and started tracking through Goodreads in 2018. I’ve kept at it ever since for three reasons. First, it’s much easier to find and give recommendations to people when I have them all in one place. Someone will want a book about xx and I’ll remember something I read last year. Second, I believe reading is about comfort and escapism but also about learning and expanding yourself. So, I use my list to make sure I’m branching out from time to time. For instance, right now I am in a paranormal/fantasy rut. I’ve read a lot of that so far this year. Honestly, that’s my go-to comfy place. However, it’s also not the place where my favorites come from (contradictory and odd, I know but that’s me). I know that means I need to shake it up a bit for my next couple books. Third, I like the feeling of accomplishment when I meet my goal (usually about November). I set my goal at a very reasonable level but one that I can quickly get way behind if take too time off for very long.

Goodreads is a good platform for tracking books for ease of use if you are just wanting to track the books. It is very easy to look up info on the books you are thinking of and look at reviews. They also have a feature to let you create a Want to Read list which is a great feature until you start entering into their giveaway drawings. They automatically put any books you register for onto your Want to Read list. Since I go in and throw my name in Willy nilly sometimes (because, why not), my Want to Read list is kinda useless now.

You mentioned using it to look so you ‘can interrogate it and find interesting patterns/insights’. That would probably be the biggest part Goodreads is lacking. Any patterns and insights you gain would be from your own analysis. Now if your creative and meticulous, you can use Goodreads to make it easier for you to do your analysis. Goodreads allows you to create ‘bookshelves’ of your choosing. I’ve always done one for the year. You could probably do multiple bookshelves to group books in different ways to analyze them - genre, length, etc. It could make your list of bookshelves unwieldy rather quickly but is actually a very intriguing idea. Also, unless you put them in the reviews, there’s no way that I know of to keep a list of notes/quotes for the books you’ve read.

If mine didn’t before (believe they did), they’ve surely learned it from my 2 almost teenagers by now.

If you can’t add texture on top of paint, don’t tell my walls. We did and they’re fine. I don’t want the walls knowing you’re not supposed to and getting uppity several years after the fact. /s (but serious)

I was coming on here to recommend The Martian Chronicles and The Illustrated Man as well. They are awesome. I think my favorite scene from Bradbury is in The Martian Chronicles. It’s a scene where the narrator has built a house out of Edgar Allan Poe’s work to kill off a bunch of book censors. It’s amazing. I was cheering out loud and getting funny looks for it but did not care.

(Note: I have not taken apart an engine. However, this worked very well when disassembling and reassembling an iPhone.) In addition to bagging (or the cardboard thing, I like that), I labeled the part and numbered them according to what step I took them off in. First thing off got a number 1, etc. Then when reassembly time came, I just went backwards.

Historical drama with a woman fighting for independence and getting involved in science - “The Girl in His Shadow” There is, I believe, one little kiss but it’s a very minor subplot. Great book.

When I was a kid, I practically lived at the pool. When I would get water stuck in my ear and nothing else worked, one of my parents would blow tobacco smoke in it. Immediate relief with a perfect track record. I don’t know why it always worked and it’s probably a horrible thing to do but………

Another Midwesterner here - whatever you do, do NOT, I repeat do NOT varnish while you are running the dryer. Our dryer is in the basement but in a separate room from where my husband was trying to varnish something one winter. Dryer sucked in that smell and BAKED it into our clothes. Nasty, nasty, nasty.