It’s about time for summer, and you know what that means – summer reading challenges are beginning.
For anyone who needs some recommendations for what to read – or has ever wondered what Blue Jackets players are reading – you’re at the right place.
Recently, the Jackets shared their favorite ways to read and what genres they find themselves reaching for.
Even with the hectic schedule of a hockey season, some players find solace in reading during their down time.
“I read during the season a lot; it helps me go to sleep,” said defenseman Erik Gudbranson, perhaps the Jackets’ most voracious reader. “It’s the blue light thing. Watching TV before bed screws up my sleep, but reading is the best way to fall asleep. I’ve done it for a few years now.”
Gudbranson has ventured into many different genres but enjoys thrillers and biographies the most.
“I'm about to finish Blowback by James Patterson. I'm about 70 pages away from the end of that,” said Gudbranson. “Then the last book before that was, gosh, it was The Edge by David Baldacci. It was good.
“I like thrillers. They turn my brain off. I like page turners and just getting locked into something.”
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Gudbranson added he reads a lot of music biographies, his favorite being Scar Tissue by Anthony Kiedis, the lead vocalist of the Red Hot Chili Peppers.
Gudbranson’s nights are filled with lots of reading. First, he reads to his two kids; they’re at the age they really enjoy Oh, the Places You’ll Go! by Dr. Seuss.
When he was younger, Gudbranson also read the Harry Potter series as well as the Goosebumps series.
“When I was really young, I used to read all the Goosebumps books,” he said. “I used to read all of those and try to figure out who the villain was before the end of the book.”
Forward Mathieu Olivier also mentioned reading lots of series as a kid, many of which were in French, but Harry Potter was also one of them.
Like Gudbranson, he tries to read to his kids every night. He said they like any books about animals or sports, making it easy to please them.
Olivier noted enjoying many genres as well and does not stick to just one.
“I like history,” he said. “I like a lot of different genres. I'm not hard to please, in that sense.
“I just heard it on a podcast somewhere that there was this book about this Spanish explorer, a crazy story. So, I figured I'd buy it and listen to it. When the season starts and ends, I’ve got to do like a 13- or 14-hour road trip, so it's perfect. I just listen to it the whole time.”
This concept of listening to books was very popular among the CBJ players, which isn’t surprising when considering their travel schedule during the season.
For Olivier, it’s easier to listen to books when driving, and he said it makes him less tired than reading physical copies.
“I do audiobooks a lot because the thing with me is, for some reason if I read a book, within five minutes I'm going to fall asleep. It's a good way for me to fall asleep,” Olivier said. “It's not that I don't want to read, it's just that it doesn't work, so I do the audiobooks.”
Sean Kuraly also has trouble reading physical copies while traveling because he gets motion sickness. But for every book he listens to, he buys the physical copy to put on his shelf as a token of completion.
“Not a big physical reader, but I will I'll listen to books and podcasts and stuff, but lately I've been getting into audiobooks,” Kuraly said. “Right now, I'm listening to a book called Outlive by Dr. Peter Attia, which is about health stuff, like health trends in the U.S. and opening your eyes on to how to live a healthier lifespan.”
Kuraly finds himself drawn to nonfiction books the most right now.
“I haven't gotten really into the fiction stuff, so it's always kind of nonfiction,” Kuraly said. “Another one I just listened to was Steve Martin's book Born Standing Up. I kind of have a fascination with comedians and like how they find their niche and how they get better because there's no school for it. There's no path or anything. So, that's more towards what I listen to.
“Another one I was listening to was called Open; it's Andre Agassi, the tennis player’s autobiography. I find the athletes' stuff fascinating. You kind of find parallels in your life and struggles and stuff. So, that's a genre I get into also.”
Another CBJ player said he enjoys reading sports biographies for a similar reason. Funny enough, CBJ captain Boone Jenner’s last book he read was titled The Captain Class by Sam Walker.
“It’s a book on the 16 sports teams that were considered dynasties and why they were,” Jenner said. “I got recommended it by a friend, and it's interesting just to read of how the good teams became good and stayed good.”
Jenner said he also reaches most for autobiographies and uses audiobooks, both common answers in their locker room.
“I like autobiographies, books about athletes and teams,” he said. “It’s the profession I’m in, so I'm drawn toward that. I like the true stories and inspiring stories."
It seems like Gudbranson may be the outlier as an avid Kindle user and fiction reader.
“I have a Kindle,” he said. If I see something interesting, usually I'll go through the series. Like I went through the Lars Kepler series, I think it has 17 books. I did that in like one year. Those are like, you flip them on and they're like 350 pages and it's just one after the other, you can’t put it down. Before you know it, you’ve read 200 pages.
“I read David and Goliath by Malcolm Gladwell. And that’s pretty much it for self-help books. They get gimmicky to me.”
With all these recommendations, both the Blue Jackets and the 5th Line are ready to take on their summer reading challenges.
