Having a "reading evening"!

[Decafflatteplease]

So excited to have a reading evening this evening, getting the little ones asleep then I'm getting a shower, pyjamas on and want to be in bed by 9pm with my heated blanket and my book. Rock and roll eh?!

I'm so tired and need to take care of myself more so hopefully this will help!

Does anyone else do this? How do you not feel guilty for taking time out?

Sounds so lovely! And what do you have to feel guilty about?

Sounds perfect to me OP! What are you reading?

I've got a Matt Haig book on the go, but I haven't picked it up in weeks due to exhaustion and workload. You've inspired me to pick it up again over this weekend....

Ooh this sounds lovely.

Thanks all, I just find it hard to relax, full time carer to disabled DC.

I'm going to start Still Life I've heard so many good reviews.

I might just end up falling asleep though!

I set myself a book challenge last year and only just managed to scrape it. I find it so hard to concentrate on a book past maybe two chapters. I blame smart phones for that!

Last night I went to bed at 10pm to read. At 10.45pm DD1 (age 15 and a complete night owl who comes alive after 10pm) came in and then spoke without taking a breath until 11.45pm at which point I threw her out because pretending to be asleep hadn't work. At which point DH came to bed and wanted to fucking snuggle. Bastard.

Enjoy your children having sensible bedtimes while you can. I'm just looking foward to University.

Reading before sleeping is a healthy way to get sleepy and if your book is pleasant, you get to take that nice feeling with you when you zzzZzzzz

Love doing this on a Friday night @Decafflatteplease! DH and I get the kids to bed, watch something easy to relax to (at the moment Friday is usually last nights Apprentice on catch up) and then in bed for ten and snuggle down to read our books. I'm reading the first volume of 'Tune In', the acclaimed Beatles biography by Mark Lewisohn, at the moment and really enjoying it. Looking for some decent literary fiction or graphic novels though, if anyone has any recommendations?

Have you read The Night Circus?

@BernadetteRostankowskiWolowitz is that the one by Erin Morgenstern? If so I haven't, but I've heard good things!

I never feel guilty about reading! I do about watching TV or wasting time on social media, but never reading.

Right now, I’m massively into audiobooks. In fact, I’ve come to the conclusion that they’re the greatest invention in human history. Laying in a warm bed listening to Stephen Fry read me P. G. Wodehouse or Sherlock Holmes! Ahhh...heaven. Dickens and Evelyn Waugh are also perfect for audiobook, and so are H. G. Wells, Agatha Christie and Tolkien. I have my nighttime ritual - hot shower, then a glass of red wine before getting into bed. Bliss.

It’s like being a child again. I’ve even started to listen to some childhood favourites on audio: Wind in the Willows, the Narnia books, Roald Dahl (preferably uncensored by the secret police), etc.

I’ve also got a pile of classics that I plan to read during the spring and summer. I like to fill the house with flowers (I love the smell of lilies) and sit in the sun, inhaling the scent, and working through them one by one. In case anyone is interested, this is the pile:

Jane Austen: Emma
Truman Capote: In Cold Blood
Thomas Hardy: Return of the Native
Edward st Aubyn: Melrose novels
Virginia Woolf: Orlando
Kurt Vonnegut: Sirens of Titan
Robert Graves: Goodbye to All That
Rudyard Kipling: Short stories
Aldous Huxley: Point Counter Point
D. H. Lawrence: Women in love
George Eliot: Middlemarch
Boswell: Life of Johnson
Oscar Wilde: De Profundis
Hermann Hesse: Siddartha

Yes it is. I'd say it was literary fiction as it absolutely immerses you into a magical world but the plot is only ok. The visual Ness of it all is what makes it a wonderful read.