My reading habits have followed a pretty predictable pattern for years now.
Summer
In early summer, I spend too much time outside enjoying the comfortable weather to read much. This period of time doesn’t last long, so I’d generally rather go hiking or do other outdoor activities that will soon become uncomfortable when the first heat wave arrives.
As the temperatures and humidity rise, so does my reading time. Sometimes I’ll go outside to read if I can find a shady spot for that. There’s something refreshing about burying your nose in a book while also catching a stray breeze and hearing the friendly rustle of leaves in the trees.
Horror can be a fun genre to dive into at this time of the year. I also tend to start feeling more interested in history books during the summer for reasons I’ve never figured out.
Autumn
Autumn is gorgeous here once the heat of September melts away. My reading rate slows down once again as it becomes more feasible to spend a lot of time outdoors enjoying the autumn colours and cooler weather.
When I do feel the urge to read, it tends to be science fiction, fantasy, history, or, my personal favourite, ghost stories. The closer we get to Halloween, the more likely it is I’ll want to read something in homage to my favourite holiday. Biographies can be okay in small doses, too, although I tend to stock those titles away for the truly cold days to come.
Winter
To put it generously, I am not a winter person. The cold, dark days here make me feel sad, especially after the winter holidays end and we still have more than three months to go until any semblance of spring weather might appear.
This is the time of year when I read ravenously. I tend to avoid horror and very dark subject matter until I feel happier, but I’ll dive into literally anything else: poetry, the classics, fairy tales, mysteries, science fiction, biographies, history, and even the occasional romance novel! This is also when I tend to reread old favourites.
Spring
This season often gets a slow, muddy start in Ontario, so I like to read anything that reminds me of the warmer days that are sure to follow…eventually.
As the temperatures warm up, my reading rates slow down again because it’s finally warm outside again and I want to enjoy the outdoors before summer arrives.
Books about food and cooking become more interesting to me in early spring, and that only increases over time. Maybe it’s because I’m dreaming of all of the delicious food that will soon be in season?
I also tend to read less fiction during this season, especially anything speculative like science fiction or fantasy. Nonfiction is usually most appealing then, although I curiously don’t feel as compelled to read history books or biographies until cold weather returns.
Do your reading habits shift throughout the year like mine do? If so, what patterns have you noticed?
Each month I share photos from one of the parks in Toronto to show my readers what our landscape looks like throughout the year. This is the sixth instalment of this series.
There are a few things about Canadian and, more specifically, Torontonian culture that I should explain here for anyone who isn’t already familiar with them before diving into the meat of this post.
I remember a Canada Day spent on a rooftop party hosted by a friend of a friend. The view was spectacular.
Each month I share photos from one of the parks in Toronto to show my readers what our landscape looks like throughout the year. This is the fifth instalment of this series.
One of my college professors sent us out to eavesdrop as part of a creative writing assignment. We were instructed to write down the conversation and then analyze the flow of it in order to make the dialogue in our stories more realistic in the future.
Listening to the way people really speak was also incredibly informative. The conversation I overheard was filled with friendly interruptions and all sorts of detours into other, mostly-related topics.
None of these anecdotes have made it into one of my stories (yet?), but they have taught me about the ways people think and how many different ways the same tale can be told depending on whose perspective you look at.
Google analytics keeps showing me visitors who found this blog by searching for phrases like “how to get quiet people to speak up.” It seems like a good discussion topic, so let’s jump into it!
Some people excel at filling every potential moment of silence in a conversation with words.
There’s something wonderful about open-ended questions that do their best to avoid assumptions.
If possible, choose a smaller group of people to talk to instead of a larger one. I find it much easier to chime in when a few other folks are taking turns talking than when a dozen or more people have joined the conversation.
This is the fourth instalment of this series.
When I first read that article last month, I didn’t think it applied to me.
The mansion was as beautiful, dark, and Victorian as ever. There was an old-fashioned library in it this time, and I ached to read all of the books. The problem was that the ghosts made their presence known long before I finished exploring the house, much less settled down to read for a while. 
Edited on May 13, 2020 to include two responses to this post: 
There may be some people on this planet whose interests all exist in well-defined bubbles that never intersect with each other, but I’m not one of them.
Look, would I ever tell someone else what to write about on their site? Absolutely not!