Bibliomania
Wednesday, May 30, 2012 at 09:00AM 
Earlier this year, inspired by other members of From Left to Write, the online bloggers bookclub I'd recently joined, I signed up for GoodReads.com. I thought it might make it easier to keep my annual list of books read, something I've been doing for years, first in my annual Moleskine journal, then (now) in a sidebar and a dedicated page on this blog. I also really liked that you could set a reading goal for the year.
I might have gone a little overboard.
The most I've read in a recent year is 35 titles. That was back in 2010. Last year I felt pretty good about my 32 which, really, if you consider that I work full-time, etc., etc., is probably a lot. Certainly it's more than the average American reads in a year, which I saw somewhere is 9 books. Nine. And that's a whole lot better than 25% of the population who managed to read ZERO books last year. ZERO. They're missing out. But then again, my goal of 60 is a whole lot less than some people I know, like my friend Alicia, who must read over 100 books a year easy.
I'm not sure why I decided to double my average annual performance on up to 60, other than the fun of setting A Bold Big-Ass Goal. It was long before I had any idea at all that I'd wind up the recipient of a 6-week disability leave following back surgery. I was planning on a July holiday in Bali back then, so I knew I'd enjoy precious long-flight time to consume multiple books back to back. Still, 60 titles is a lot for me. I'm not sure I really broke it down or understood it like this:
60 books/year = more than 1 a week. Damn.
But now, with that windfall jackpot omg-awesomeness of the now-5-week break from work, I'm a-gonna get on pace, if not ahead of pace a bit, so that when I log in to Good Reads to update what I've finished, what I've started, it doesn't tell me that I'm 7 books, or 13%, behind where I need to be.
I'm working on it!
Right now I'm actually reading two books, both non-fiction, while I await the arrival from Amazon of two titles I am actually more interested: The Power of Habit by Charles Duhigg (stay tuned for a post inspired by that one) and The Man Who Loved Books Too Much by Allison Hoover Bartlett. I'm finishing these by Friday, since that's when Amazon is delivering the next two that I'm really eager for: Antonia Fraser's Marie Antoinette: The Journey (which I already read in 2009, according to my Book List, but which was a library book, which I only remembered after 20 minutes of scouring every bookcase in the house, even the stacks of meh-books that are on their way to donation, proving that the library I like the best is my own) and Peter Carey's The Chemistry of Tears. Oh, I do love Peter Carey.
Thanks to my bookish and generous friends, I also have a tall stack of books to read during this pleasurable interval, but I have to admit that it's still an adjustment to spend a few hours in a chair reading right smack in the middle of a weekday afternoon. It feels weird. It's hard for me not to feel as though I should be doing something, even though reading IS doing something. I'm still having a hard time not feeling like a lazy bones for sitting on my ass reading.
Like I said, I'm working on it.
If I keep this up, I don't doubt I'll catch up to where I'm supposed to be by the end of June -- i.e., 30 books read. I know it doesn't matter at all; I just think it's fun to reach for it, to think about what I want to read to get to the Big Sixty Goal. And since I have all this time at home to read while Joe is at work, then I don't have to make that most unpleasant of choices that comes up when we're both in the house and I really would prefer to be reading. I don't have to say, as nicely as it is possible to say such a thing, "Can you please not talk to me? [gesturing at book] I'm reading." Or else feel Joe's eyes boring holes in the side of my head until I mark my page and put the book down.
Instead I'm day-time full-on indulging my bibliomania for the next 5 weeks. If you have titles to suggest, add them in the comments below. I look forward to hearing what you think should make it into the Big Sixty this year-- help me out!
XX
Reader Comments (1)
I bet you've already read these but I am reading Alexandra Horowitz, "Inside of a Dog," and Carole Kings's memoir "A Natural Woman," they are both SO good I will die of unhappiness when the last page is turned, xxoo!