May Reading Notes 📖 Mood Reading & the Myth of the Ideal Reader

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[00:00:05]May turned out to be a very unexpected reading month for me. Not because of what I planned to read, but because of how I ended up reading. And I found myself thinking a lot about mood reading. And honestly, my relationship to that has changed a little bit.

[00:00:25]Hi, it's me Tracy, your literary companion here on book. I make videos about books, reading and learning as a way of life and sharing intentional ways of living creatively. And sometimes creativity looks like reshaping ideas.

[00:00:42]Adaptation.

[00:00:44]For a long time, I think I treated mood reading mostly as a matter of preference, choosing books based on atmosphere, a particular craving, or whatever sounded good in the moment. But this month made me realize mood reading can also mean adaptation, needing to adapt. Between chronic fatigue, migraine headaches, and even our library interlone system being closed down for several weeks, my reading life became much less structured than usual during May. And I noticed that certain kinds of books suddenly felt much harder to enter into.

[00:01:27]Dense pros that I normally would have loved sometimes just felt exhausting.

[00:01:33]And because reading is such a huge part of my identity, my life, that that shift felt surprisingly emotional. I think many of us maybe carry around unconsciously even an idea of an ideal reader. Endlessly focused, ambitious, even always capable of reading, reading difficult books, reading productivity.

[00:01:59]But real readers live in real bodies and energy changes, attention changes, life changes. This month, instead of fighting that reality, I found myself reaching toward books that felt gentler. Not necessarily simple books, but books that felt spacious, emotionally, emotionally grounding, comforting, or immersive in different ways. What surprised me is that these books ended up giving me exactly what I needed. Without even planning it, so much of what I read in May became centered around connection, friendship, healing, belonging, nostalgia, and even hope. Almost every book I picked up seemed to carry some version of those emotional threads.

[00:02:47]And honestly, it felt less like curating a reading list and more like my reading life was trying to take care of me.

[00:02:57]So, if my reading this month seemed softer than usual, I think this is why the more I reflected on mood reading this month, the more I realized this isn't about books. It's not just about books. It's about identity, expectation, and learning to read with compassion toward ourselves. I actually explored all of this uh a lot more deeply in my Substack essay called Mood Reading and the Myth of the Ideal Reader. The same as this video, which I will leave a link to below if you would like to read further and join me for more conversation over there.

[00:03:41]One of the absolute highlights of my month was reading Always Best Buds by KS Jensen, our very own Sooie of Book's Sue's Book Banter.

[00:03:54]This heartwarming YA debut is such a lovely celebration of friendship and growing up. The story follows best friends Jan and Livia as they navigate change, misunderstandings, family struggles, crushes, and all the uncertainty that comes with high school and growing older. And what makes this book especially charming is the format.

[00:04:15]The entire novel is told through notes passed between classes. As someone who absolutely loves pens, stationery, handwritten correspondence, and all of that, this felt incredibly nostalgic and personal to me. The doodles, scribbles, crossed out lines, slightly crumpled notebook pages, it all gives the story such warmth and authenticity, and the signoff between friends. ABB, always best buds. It was just incredibly sweet.

[00:04:46]One of my favorite things about this novel is how beautifully it portrays healthy female friendships. Jen and Livia feel honest and vulnerable with one another in a way that reminded me so much of the intensity and tenderness of teenage friendship. And because I grew up in the 1980s, all the cultural and musical references throughout the story felt like this was a wonderful little nostalgia time capsule for me as well.

[00:05:16]I smiled throughout this entire book.

[00:05:19]And yes, there may have been one or two happy, nostalgic tears, too. It just felt deeply heartfelt in the best possible ways. And I am already looking forward to what KS Jensen ours writes next.

[00:05:37]The feeling of emotional comfort and quiet wisdom continued in what you are looking for is in the library by Macho Ayama. This honestly felt like the exact kind of book my reading life needed this month.

[00:05:53]This novel follows five people in Tokyo who each feel stuck or uncertain in life in different ways. Through a community library and the quietly perceptive librarian Sori Kumachi with her reading recommendations and surprise gifts, they each begin finding unexpected direction and hope through carefully chosen books and small acts of human connection and kindness. I love these Japanese literary novels that feel soft and understated on the surface while quietly asking enormous life questions underneath.

[00:06:30]This book reminded me that libraries and stories themselves can sometimes become places of emotional refuge. Not necessarily places that solve everything, but places that help us breathe a little easier while we figure things out.

[00:06:50]And then, interestingly, even my slightly darker reading this month still connected back to the same emotional themes.

[00:07:01]The Wolf and the Woodsman by Ava Reed was much grittier though, more brutal. A dark fantasy steeped in Hungarian history, folklore, Christian tradition, and Jewish mythology.

[00:07:15]This story follows, an outcast pagan girl who the Holy Order of Woodsmen takes as a sacrifice for a fanatical king. Alongside a disgraced prince named Gaspar, she becomes entangled in political conspiracies, religious conflict, survival, and questions of identity and belonging. This book absolutely kept me up past my bedtime.

[00:07:43]The world building is rich and immersive. The atmosphere feels like stepping into a dark fairy tale of time's past.

[00:07:52]I especially loved how morally complex and emotionally layered the characters of this story were. And even here in this very different kind of story, I found myself drawn to the themes of found family, resilience, and carving out humanity in a harsh world in uncertain times, which apparently was my reading mood all month long.

[00:08:19]The same found family thread also appeared in Star Wars Sanctuary, a Bad Batch novel by Lamar Giles, which I deliberately saved to start reading on May 4th, Star Wars Day, because of course I did Star Wars geek that I am.

[00:08:38]As a big Bad Batch fan, this story felt like a lost episode of the animated TV series. The novel follows Clone Force 99, Hunter, Wrecker, Tech, and Omega as they work alongside treasure hunter Fe Genanoa to help rebuild the island of Pabou after a devastating tsunami, only for their mission to spiral into danger involving smugglers, intrigue, imperial agents, and fugitives. One of my favorite things about The Bad Batch has always been its focus on loyalty and found family, and this book delivers so much of that at its emotional core.

[00:09:16]And during a month where I seem to be gravitating toward emotionally heartening stories, spending time with characters who deeply care for one another just felt especially comforting.

[00:09:30]And I hope that there will be more stories with the Bad Batch.

[00:09:35]Even my poetry reading this month seemed to carry a similar sense of gentleness and reflection. I revisited the poetry of John Bcherman, one of Britain's most beloved poets, writers, and radio and TV broadcasters, whose works blend humor, nostalgia, faith, and observations of everyday British life with with such warmth and accessibility.

[00:10:00]There's something deeply comforting about John Benjamin's poetry to me. The poems often have a a bittersweet note, a tinge of humor, a sense of drama, and the beauty of a moment in time, no matter how mundane. A man of Anglican Christian faith, John Benjamin wrote about ordinary people, places, towns, churches with so much affection while also quietly reflecting on themes of loneliness, memory, and of times past and England now frozen in time. And perhaps because this month already had me thinking about nostalgia and emotional grounding, his poetry felt especially resonant.

[00:10:44]On the bookshelves here, we have a couple of collections of John Berman's poetry, Summoned by Bells, collected poems, and we also have an excellent biography by AN Wilson. Let me read for you a few selections from John Bjum's collected poems.

[00:11:06]And this one is simply entitled him.

[00:11:11]The church's restoration in 1883 has left for contemplation not what there used to be. How how well the ancient woodwork looks round the rectory hall.

[00:11:22]Memorial of the good work of him who planned it all. He who took down the pew ends and sold them anywhere, but kindly spared a few ends worked up into a chair. Oh worthy persecution, oh dust, oh hu divine, oh cheerful substitution, thou varnished pitch pine, church furnishing, church furnishing, sing art and crafty praise. He gave the brass for burnishing he gave the thick red bays.

[00:11:53]He gave the new addition, pulled down the dull old aisle. To pave the sweet transition he gaveth enostic tile. Oh marble brown and vain he did the pulpit make he ordered winter stained light red and crimson lake sing on with hymns uporious ye humble and aloof look up and oh how glorious he has restored the roof.

[00:12:24]Some of the poems related to churches and buildings I find so interesting since Benjamin was very interested uh in in architecture, Victorian architecture uh especially and this one is entitled Holy Trinity Sloan Street.

[00:12:45]The acolyte singth light six tapers with the flame of art.

[00:12:52]Send incense wreaththing to the lily flowers and with your cool hands white swing the warm sensor round my bruised heart.

[00:13:02]Drop dove gray eyes your penitential showers on this acolyte.

[00:13:09]The confirm continue with the tall red house soarses upward to the stars. The doors are chased with sardonics and gold.

[00:13:20]And in the long white room, thin drapery draws backward to unfold.

[00:13:26]Kardogen square between the window bars and Whistler's mother knitting in the gloom.

[00:13:34]The priest endeth. How many hearts turn motherward today? Red roses faint not on your twisting stems. Bronze tptic doors unswing. Wait, rest of heart, wait.

[00:13:50]Rounded lips to pray. Midbeaten copper interest with gems. Behold, behold your king.

[00:14:04]And this one is entitled Sunday morning king's Cambridge.

[00:14:09]File into yellow candlelight fair coristers of kings lost in the shadowy silence of canopied Renaissance stalls in blazing glass above the dark glow skies and thrones and wings. Blue, ruby, gold, and green between the whiteness of the walls. And with what rich precision the stonework soarses and springs to fountain out a spreading vault, a shower that never falls.

[00:14:39]The white of windy Cambridge courts, the cobbles brown and dry. The gold of plaster gothic with ivy overgrown.

[00:14:48]The apple red, the silver fronts, the wide green flats and high. The yellowing elm trees circle out on islands of their own.

[00:15:00]Oh, here behold all colors change that catch the flying sky. Two waves of pearly light that heave along the shafted stern in fair east Anglican churches. The clasp pants lying long, recumbent on separal curl slabs, or effigy in brass, buttress with prayer, this vulted roof so white and light and strong, and countless congregations as the generations pass. Join choir and great crowded organ case in centuries of song to praise eternity contained in time and colored glass.

[00:15:48]And finally for a little manga. My manga reading this month somehow amazingly continued the same emotional threads carried throughout the months.

[00:15:58]Friendship, healing, and tenderness.

[00:16:01]Sakura Saku by Io Saki Saka is a heartfelt series about friendship, first love, and personal growth.

[00:16:11]In the first volume, we meet Saku Fujigaya, a shy high school girl inspired by the kindness of a stranger who once helped her through a difficult moment. Determined to find him and thank him, she discovers a connection to him through her classmate Haruki Sakura and the two gradually grow closer. In volume two, the story continues as Saku Haruki and their friends navigate relationships, school, first love, self-discovery, and the courage it takes to keep moving forward in life. The beautiful artwork in this series captures the emotional vulnerability of adolescence so well. This is a new to me series and I'm really looking forward to continuing with it.

[00:17:01]And then there was Fruits Basket by Natsuki Takaya which I am now finally getting to read for the first time and completely understand why so many people adore this series.

[00:17:15]Fruits Basket is another charming story centered around friendship, healing, and love. The series follows kind-hearted teenager Tooro Honda, who begins living with the mysterious Soma family after her mother's death. She soon discovers that the members of the family are cursed and transform into animals of the Chinese zodiac whenever they are hugged by the opposite sex or placed under emotional stress. As Tou becomes part of their complicated world, she helps uncover their hidden pain, heal old wounds, and slowly break the curses cycle through empathy, compassion, and love. The expressent, exuberant art style completely complements the emotional chaos of the Soma family.

[00:18:11]Beneath the humor and charm, this series is really about grief, healing, compassion, and learning how to love people gently through their pain, which feels like the perfect conclusion to this month's reading experience.

[00:18:30]When I look back at everything I read in May across literary fiction, fantasy, YA, poetry, manga, even Star Wars, the common thread was about making connections. Mood reading isn't laziness, and it isn't failure either.

[00:18:49]It is certainly not reading incorrectly.

[00:18:53]Sometimes mood reading is simply about listening closely to what your mind, body, and heart need and what they are what you are capable of in a particular moment in time of life. And maybe there's something freeing in letting reading become less performative and more restorative.

[00:19:14]So, my May reading notes, a month of softer books, comforting stories, unexpected emotional connections, and learning to trust my reading instincts even more. And there's good news. The library interone system situation has been sorted out. And in June, we can request books again. Hooray.

[00:19:36]I would love to hear from you. Are you a mood reader? And how would you define mood reading?

[00:19:43]Have you ever experienced a a a shift in your reading because of life circumstances, stress, health, or changing energy levels? Please do share in the comments.

[00:19:55]I like to think that we are always here together supporting one another and through literature as well as life. And please give this video a like and subscribe if you haven't already and you would like to join me here for more literary life shared together. Thank you for being here with me today. May your days hold good light and your reading be nourishing. Your life gently shaped by the books that find you. Until next time, I wish you happy reading and as always, I send you much love and many blessings. I will see you again here soon.