I spent the entire night tonight lying on the couch, eating tortilla chips, playing phone games, and listening to an audiobook.

It’s that last bit that saves it, right? I mean, sure, it would absolutely have been better if I’d been knitting or cleaning or doing laundry while the book was playing, but at least listening to an audiobook while doing nothing else productive makes it not a complete waste of a perfectly good evening.

And it wasn’t. I wrapped up that audiobook in less than 24 hours, which has to have been a record for me. But in a year where reading has been slower than ever before, tearing through a book — any book — is such a relief.

It means somewhere under all this exhaustion and stress and depression and frustration, my core me is still there, waiting just to be sucked into a story at the expense of everything else.

And if it’s through my phone, rather than on paper, that’s cool, too, because reading is reading. And the page turning will come back, too.

Today’s Top Ten Tuesday topic from That Artsy Reader Girl is “Reasons I Love Reading.” It reminded me of my grandmother who once (during an 11-day power outage) shared with me that she felt sorry for people who don’t read. “What do they do with all their time?” What indeed?

1. Language excites me. A well-turned phrase needs to be shared with whoever is nearby (whether they’re interested or not. Sorry, Rudi.) New words are like candy. And I love how manipulating the way words are put together conveys so much.
2. Waiting with a book is an opportunity to get a few pages in, rather than an opportunity for tedium or irritation.
3. I love being transported to a different time and place.
4. I am not wealthy enough or endowed with enough vacation time to go to all the places I want to visit … except with my library card.
5. A shared love of a story is a shortcut. My college roommate said she knew the first night we’d be friends because I put a copy of Anne of Green Gables on my desk. And seeing people reading the Harry Potter books in the first days after release helped me know there were lots of people who shared something important with me.
6. I can juggle different worlds. At a tense point in the fantasy story? Dive into that romance novel until you’re feeling ready to go on. Someone once remarked they didn’t understand how I could read multiple books at once. “Don’t you get them mixed up?” I replied that I was perfectly capable of not confusing the details of multiple friends and this wasn’t especially different.
7. Books can fill in for friends (for a little while) when you’re feeling lonely and out of your element. When we moved to D.C., we brought a carload of stuff with us at a time. I had a box of books I insisted had to come with me first off.
8. Your books tell me about you. The first thing I do on going to someone’s home for the first time is to look at their bookshelves.
9. It’s the best way to learn things! I mean, sure YouTube is absolutely faster if I want to learn how to knit an i-cord. But if I want to learn the history of knitting or why microaggressions are so virulent? I’m turning to a book.
10. Sometimes, a magical book will make you feel seen in a way that nothing else does.

Why do you love to read?

Oh, and while I have you bookish people here: Are there spoilers to Six of Crows if I start reading it before I finish watching season one of Shadow and Bone on Netflix? I started listening to it last year and quickly realized it would be a book I’d enjoy more in print.

My shawl is … still small. I’m through the first three set-up sections, but there are eight sections of mosaic ahead.

I just tonight wrapped up listening to Act Your Age, Eve Brown, the final book in Talia Hibbert’s Brown sisters romance novels.

I still have about 100 pages left in Arsenic and Adobo. The main character and her family have grown on me, but I am neither impressed by the murder mystery aspect of the book nor especially worried that the whodunit is going to surprise me.

I’m thinking when I’m done I’ll start A Lady’s Formula for Love, about a Victorian scientist and the Scottish body guard/police officer who must protect her against threats.

Head over to As Kat Knits to see what others are reading and crafting!

This week’s Top Ten Tuesday from That Artsy Reader Girl invites us to share the new releases we’re most looking forward to in the next six months:

1. Miss Moriarty, I Presume?, by Sherry Thomas (November)
2. Any Way the Wind Blows, by Rainbow Rowell (July)
3. Incense and Sensibility, by Sonali Dev (July)
4. Aristotle and Dante Dive into the Waters of the World, by Benjamin Alire Sáenz (October)
5. Under the Whispering Door, by TJ Klune (September)
6. Fast Pitch, by Nic Stone
7. If the Shoe Fits, by Julie Murphy (August)
8. Enola Holmes and the Black Barouche, by Nancy Springer (August)
9. The Lincoln Highway, by Amir Towles (October)
10. Your Guide to Not Getting Murdered in a Quaint English Village, by Maureen Johnson (September)

How about you? Are there any books coming out before the end of the year you’re particularly excited about?

My rainbow socks will not likely be done by the end of the month, particularly with Tour knitting starting on Saturday. But I do have a finished sock, so that’s not nothing.

I am about halfway through both Arsenic and Adobo and Act Your Age, Eve Brown. The former has started irritating me less, so although I am relatively certain I know the who of the murder, I’m happy to read through to see if there’s some depth to the why. And the latter series of books is always enjoyable. Both Chloe and Dani have now made (phone) appearances in the story, so I’m even happier.

Head over to As Kat Knits to see what others are crafting and reading.

I’m feeling very meh about the book I started in print last week. There are some pretty major stressors in my life right now, so I can’t tell if it’s just that, if I need to give myself another 25 pages to let the story get going, or if, despite several other people telling me it’s good, it’s just not the right book for me.

And with all those other stressors, it feels very irksome to have the thing I like best as a stress reliever to be demanding additional brain power and attention.

Just be easy, reading, at least for the rest of this month!