Study break books

School is starting soon, which on the one hand I'm really excited for, but on the other hand I know it will mean much less time to read and make things. Last year I was terrible about keeping up with my reading, though I know usually I did have time I could have devoted to it. Television and the internet were just too distracting, especially since they have the added attraction of requiring zero effort. But this year I want to be better about reading. I have a large stack of books I'm really looking forward to, and I want to actually read them.

A lot of it is a matter of choosing the right books. Last year I was mostly working on books I own, but I've always benefited from the deadline library books require. Library books also tend to be new and shiny. When I'm otherwise busy, I need to be excited about a book to get all the way through it in a timely fashion. Books that provide a nice change from what I'm reading in class are also more likely to get read. Surprisingly, nonfiction worked well for me last year. I loved Bluestockings and read it in only a few days, and I read quite a lot of Victorian Visitors, too. Last fall Dorothy Sayers did a good job getting me back to reading. I think mysteries are particularly good busy-time books. They're suspenseful but not too taxing.

I think most of my problem last year was my attitude towards reading. Somewhere along the line I forgot how nice it is to just sit down and read for hours. I treated reading as something you do when you're waiting for something else to happen--before your class starts, on the bus, in waiting rooms. But this summer I've rediscovered how to spend a whole afternoon reading. With any luck, I won't soon forget that.

If anyone has suggestions for books that might make a good study break, I'd love to hear them.