The Moody Reader Book Tag

I haven't done a book tag video in a while, but this one was perfectly suited to the way I want to read in 2021. So let's talk about why aromatherapy doesn't do it for me, how I annoyed my family packing for vacation, and more.

Titles mentioned:
Leave the World Behind, Rumaan Alam
The Sue Grafton Alphabet Series
Real Life, Brandon Taylor
Overground Railroad, Candacy Taylor
Matilda, Roald Dahl
All My Puny Sorrows, Miriam Toews
The Hearts Invisible Furies, John Boyne
Mouthful of Birds, Samanta Schweblin

Questions:
1. Do you consider yourself a mood reader?
2. Do you set TBR lists and do you stick to them?
3. Do books affect you emotionally? Does the mood of a book rub off on you?
4. When you’re feeling sad, what do you read? (Or do you not read when sad?)
5. Most often, do you use reading to escape, to learn, or to critically reflect?
6. What is a book that made you laugh out loud?
7. What is a book that has made you cry? Or, if you don’t cry, one that really moved you?
8. What is a book that you didn’t even know how you felt about?
9. Are you more likely to read on a sunny day or a cloudy day?
10. Do you usually “set the mood” when you read? Music, lights, smells, etc?
11. Can you leap from book to book or do you need buffer time between them?

My husband made a cookbook! Check it out here:

But wait, there's more!

[robertahiday]

I love your love for Sue Grafton’s novels. Kinsey Milhone, Henry, and Kinsey’s all purpose black dress always come through in stressful times!

[colbyo]

Such a fun tag! Loved hearing your answers.

[MarilynMayaMendoza]

Hi Greg, I’m always up late at night and I always catch your videos. I’m happy I caught this one because it resonated with me. Not the mood reading parts so much. Like you, I’ve never heard that term until I joined book tube. The part that I really understood was escaping with Books. I still do that. It works very well. And I also use mysteries when I feel sad. You should branch out from Sue Grafton. She’s great, but there are other writers in the genre that Work as well. I also can’t read with music or sleep with the TV. I don’t have a TV in my room. I need total darkness. It’s weird. Fun fact. There’s no word for Weather in Hawaiian. I like that. Aloha and good night

[BookishTexan]

Love how much thought you put into the sunny v. cloudy day prompt.🙂

[iuwsvhs]

Thorough as always. One question I would have liked to see in the tag is: does your mood affect what you get out of a book? For as much as moods affect how and what we read they affect the “conversation” we have with the writer when reading. Just something I think about.

[monaedoyle]

Hello. I am a huge mood reader but I am a reader of romance books. I don’t have a set TBR. The books I read make me quite happy especially the book I’m reading right now. When I’m feeling sad I read a romance, when I’m feeling happy I read romance. I have certain authors I like to read. I carry books everywhere with me. I have read many many books and not one has ever made me cry. I always know how I feel about a book because I read romance. I read whether it’s sunny outside or if it’s cloudy ☁️ or even better when it’s raining 🌧. Usually when I finish a book I know the book I’m going to read next.

[mradcaqbdb]

I STILL don’t know how I feel about Leave the World Behind and it’s been maybe 6 months since I listened to it. That book completely freaked me out!

[deborajohnson]

I can leap book to book but usually need to change genres. Fun video!

[myreadinglife]

Love All My Puny Sorrows so much! I think I am not a mood reader. I usually am plowing my way through some project or other.

[shawnbreathesbooks]

Fabulous! I knew we agreed on All My Puny Sorrows and Heart’s Invisible Furies but I don’t think I realized how deeply: I would describe my reaction to those books almost precisely, exactly the way you did! 😍

And as for the Rumaan Alam, if I was understanding you, it was that you couldn’t leave the world behind for Leave The World Behind? 😜

[halimamuslimah]

If I listen to music while reading, it's always acoustic & it's at a barely audible volume.

[dqan]

Watched two videos yesterday that recommended having a large number of books (25+) on the go to aid mood reading. May be that's why I actually have 25 books on the go, just on my Kindle. Went to find a humorous book to add to the rotation and had to go back really far in my purchase history. Seems not to be a priority with me, that or I'm content to read the old dependables. Anyway, most moods take me too far out of the reading zone for it to matter.

[AJ_Dunn]

I'm not a mood reader at all. I have a huge list of books I want to get to and I sort them out by month. I can read anything, whenever. I don't like not knowing what I'm going to be reading.

[jacquelinemcmenamin]

When I’m down I need stories with happy endings. LGBTQI romance for example. Or crime fiction that’s not too gory.

[CourtneyFerriter]

I DNF'ed Mouthful of Birds earlier this year because it had a story that featured what I considered to be gratuitous dog violence.