Skolion News

Laurie Jane  shares some of her tips for digging into your reading pile with gusto. So, you’ve seen people on the internet bragging about reading a hundred books or more in a year, and you’ve thought to yourself… could I do that? The first month of 2020 is already over and perhaps you haven’t read the necessary 8.33 books required to have you on track for this staggering goal. You’re thinking of giving up. Well, that’s reasonable. Reading a hundred books in a year is, for many people, excessive and entirely unnecessary. You don’t need to read a hundred books in 2020, but it’s a great idea to have an ambitious goal anyway. If it motivates you to read even a few more books than you might’ve read otherwise, where’s the harm in that? If you don’t succeed, there aren’t any dire consequences, and if you do succeed, then you can feel great and treat yourself to the reward of your choice, and perhaps even become one of those internet braggers. There’s no way to lose. Whatever your reading ...

Laurie Jane shares how the romance genre changed her life when she was in a slump In mid-2018, I was having a rough time and I got a bit depressed. It wasn’t the first time I’d experienced depression and it wouldn’t be the last. Like all the times before, my productivity nosedived and, along with it, my ability to find joy in the activities I would normally use to escape from stress or anxiety — in particular, reading. For a person who has had their studies, their work, their dreams and even their identity tangled up in books in one way or another for as long as they can remember, this was an incredibly difficult reality to deal with. I’d pick up a book, start slogging through it and feel my mind coming apart like candy floss in a hurricane. Two chapters in, I’d be dragging my eyes along the same sentences over and over again, trying to understand what they meant, trying to appreciate the artistry of them, trying to lose myself in the story or the prose or both… but I couldn’t. I’d put...