Scattered

Not very much has changed for me in the last few weeks. I thought that I’d post again when I had gotten through the Bible. Well, I’m not near the end, but I am that much closer (still have 400 pages to go…). The thing is it can’t be the only book I read. In general, I usually have several going at once. At the moment, it’s more like eight and counting. For whatever reason, ever other book looks more delicious than the ones I’ve started. Then I get into those and still others catch my eye. 

I was craving a novel, but felt behind in my classics, so I reached for Anna Karenina, on the list but meant for later on in the year. It’s just so good and reminds me of how much I adore nineteenth-century fiction. Lucky thing I have a ton of it in the plans, although practically every selection is a brick. The binding in this one also hurts my fingers. The type dips too closely into the crease, which means I have to hold it a certain way, and that aggravates my arthritis. I wish publishers would think of these things.

Another phenomenon I’ve noticed is diminishing type size. In more than half of the classics on my shelf, the font is 8 pt or less. In French books, they just add ‘tomes’, but in English, they shrink the letters. I don’t even wear glasses but I probably will by the end of 2007. A month or two ago, I was wandering around a bookstore and noticed that there was Gibbon’s Decline and Fall of the Roman Empire in a single volume on the shelf. While it is true that it was abridged (a travesty in and of itself), it was unwieldy. If ever a book was not meant for paperback that was it. The letters were like tiny dots and it was three inches thick. Blech. There’s one I won’t buy…

So now I am faced with the end of January, and only five books finished. I am two discs away from the end of Mayflower; one disc into Good to Great; half-way through the Bible; 200 pages into The Great Transformation; 120 pages into Rwanda’s Genocide, 150 pages into Anna Karenina, 77 pages into Occidental Mythology, and 60 pages into a French book about Champollion. I wish I could just sit my tuchus down and finish one of them but it seems well nigh impossible.

Compounding this inability for completion is a new obsession with documentary films. My library has a great collection which I’ve recently discovered, and now I can’t get enough. I watch at least two a week, which, for a girl who hasn’t watched TV in years, is quite a lot. As long as there’s still learning…

Comments

[SherBears]

Wow. I sometimes wonder what I'm doing when I have 3 books going at once... I think there may be a Multi-taskers Anonymous group you could join. (Seriously, I don't think it's a problem thought.) I have wanted to read many classics, but have been terrified to start very many. Which is strange because I loved all of the books we read in high school lit. Anna K. has been on my TBR list ever since Oprah put it in her book club. I had heard of it, but hadn't had a desire to pursue it. As I've learned more about the book, my desire (to read) has increased, but I am intimidated by the number of pages. Perhaps once I have finished the 3 Diana Gabaldon books on my night stand I won't be as intimidated by reading another doorstop.