A Book a Day

My reading habits

I was once a voracious reader. Enough so that as a homeschooled kid, I was chastised for reading too much, and Mom wasn’t wrong. I was living my days inside the covers of books, any books I could get my hands on. I read anything and everything, because I certainly couldn’t afford (nor could my parents) to keep up with my reading habit. The library in small-town Alaska couldn’t keep up with me (I’ve written about that before). From those years, though, I entered into motherhood and reading didn’t stop cold but it sure slowed down. For one thing…ok, this is a long story. Suffice it for now to say that as life accelerated, my reading dwindled and in time almost vanished. Enough so that when I decided about two years ago I needed to read at a professional level again, to fuel my writing, I had to come at it just like an exercise regime rebuilding wasted muscles. I had a daily goal, a timer, and I started out with just fifteen minutes at a time, then 24 minutes¹ and now it’s part of the daily routines.

I read when I’m walking on the treadmill, and I do that almost daily unless things are really off-kilter² and I read when I’m lying in bed waiting for sleep³. I read when I’m waiting on…well, anything at all. My husband and I often read while sitting down to a meal together, and lest you think that unromantic, reading on your phone frees up your other hand to hold onto your spouse while you both silently enjoy one another. Through practice, I’ve gotten my reading speed back to nearly what it was when I was a younger woman, and Mom tested me at 1200 wpm. I’m not that fast, and likely never will be again, where I could tear through an average novel in a few hours. I am fast enough again to manage a book a day if it’s fluff⁴.

Which is why I decided to try doing just that this year. Fiction gives me flavor, non-fiction gives me flashes of story details, and the more I read, the more I want to write. It’s pleasure and it’s work!

To give you an idea, I’ve included the entries from my reading journal from the beginning of the year. Keep in mind I’m normally reading multiple books at a time, a fiction for fun, and non-fiction for research, which often doesn’t mean I’ll finish that book in a sitting but will dip in and out of it to find what I need. Current books like that are Peacocks in Paradise, Rudyard Kipling to Rider Haggard: The Record of a Friendship, and Riddles in the British Landscape.

01/13/2026 and 01/14 I am reading Matisse at War by Christopher Gorham, a look into the painter’s life and times during the turmoil of WWII. The book begins with explaining how the mass and often senseless destruction of WWI broke the spirit of the painters and birthed what became the Modern Art movement. How much deeper would the second war cut into what shards of souls remained?

01/12/2026 I read Stranger in the Looking Glass by Jan Fields: cozy mystery set in Maine, slow-paced, a little repetitive in places. Not a bad read. May pick up book 2. Book 1 really sets up to be a series, without full resolution of the mystery or possible romance.

01/11/26 I read Flight of a Witch by Ellis Peters: too much interpersonal drama, not enough actual mystery.

01/10/2026 I read The Girl in the Cellar by Patricia Wentworth: a good mystery use of amnesia

01/09/2026 I read Poison in the Pen by Patricia Wentworth: Anonymous letters must have been much more common in 1950s England as I’m fairly sure Agatha Christie also used this for a few plots. This isn’t a bad one of the type, however, a good read and twist for the villain.

01/08/2026 I read the Benevent Treasure by Patricia Wentworth: a gothic romance. Yes, I know it’s a mystery, but really, there are so many gothic romance elements in it she must have been doing it on purpose.

01/07/2026 I read Vanishing Point by Patricia Wentworth: one of the most unlikely of her plots. I mean really, would a publisher ever casually drop in on a ‘promising writer, but too young...’ I think not. Still, it’s a nice shivery gothic mystery with girls being held captive and - well, I won’t spoil it!

01/06/2026 I read The Silent Pool by Patricia Wentworth: a house party given by a retired actress has more drama than any three screenplays. Really not one of her best mysteries.

01/05/2026 I read Out of the Past by Patricia Wentworth: a house party of old friends is disrupted by deaths. Miss Silver investigates, nosing past numerous red herrings.

01/04/2026 I read The Watersplash by Patricia Wentworth: an accidental death by drowning at a shallow ford looks less accidental when it happens again. Miss Silver risks her own life to unmask the murderer.

01/03/2026 I read The Ivory Dagger by Patricia Wentworth: A locked-room mystery with a twist, when a collector of ivories and women is found dead by stabbing. The trouble is, the ivory dagger was securely locked away in front of several witnesses!

01/02/2026 I read Miss Silver Comes to Stay by Patricia Wentworth: one of my favorites of hers, mainly for the characters. Randal March, a repeating character in the series, finds his happiness at the end.

01/01/2026 I read The Catherine Wheel⁵ by Patricia Wentworth: a convoluted missing-heir plot which takes place in a smuggler’s inn complete with multiple secret passages and rather a lot of dying and romance taking place.

1. I don’t remember why that amount off top of my head, but it worked.

2. Like during the holidays this last season.

3. A dangerous pastime, to be sure, as sometimes the book is good enough to keep me reading well into the night.

4. Also, thanks to Kindle Unlimited, I can afford my reading habit these days.

5. If you were to look these up, you’ll realize I started reading the whole series sometime in December 2025 and worked through almost all of them (aside from the highly-priced ebooks). They are comfort reads, and it was a difficult time.