Happy new year to all our readers, and welcome back to another year of the CBCA Tas blog. Thanks to Maureen Mann for starting the year with a challenge to examine our own reading commitment.
As this new year begins, my social media seems to have been filled with book related items. Many of them I ignored, but every so often something piqued my interest. Are you a reader of books or listener of audiobooks?
We all read every day but it’s frequently not sustained reading. Our reading ranges from the incidental of signs and notices in our everyday lives. It includes the time, (and for so many) it’s probably too long, on social media. Or all the reading we do within our working days, while looking at screens.
But reading a book or listening to an audiobook requires us to concentrate for a much longer period. So, this time I am focussing on some of the things I have found, hoping to inspire the less frequent readers among you to do more.
100 Things We’ve Lost to the Internet by Pamela Paul, published 2021. The title intrigued me and so I thought of some of the things I have lost. These include: the excitement of seeing photos just back from the developer; hard copy newspapers every day; not making eye contact with people outside: everyone is glued to their device; maps and atlases for serendipitous travelling.
A review by Kate W in booksaremyfavouriteandbest lists them all with her comments. What have you lost?
66 days to learn to love reading again, an article published in the online Guardian newspaper, by the Australian journalist Doosie Morris (8 January, 2025), encourages those who have lost the mojo for reading in a sustained way. She says that all one needs is just under 10 weeks to change your habits.
The CBCA Tas Facebook page reposted Mike Lucas’s Book Week poem, celebrating 80 years of the CBCA Book of the Year Awards. It’s the first I have seen of many which will celebrate this year’s milestone.
Brisbane Libraries are encouraging children to register to create their own library display. Each month someone is chosen as Kid Librarian. What a fantastic idea. Wish I had thought of it while I was still working. What theme would you choose to highlight, even though you’re probably not a kid librarian?
Libraries Tasmania recently released the most popular books of 2024, over several categories, and for physical as well as eLibrary items. Does this kind of list help you in your reading journey? If you haven’t already seen it, have a look here.
Do you have a new year reading goal? Is your aim to read more than you did last year? Or expand your reading beyond your normal choices?
And finally, a few books which I have enjoyed recently.
Maureen Mann
Retired teacher librarian and avid reader
