I used to love books...

There was a time when I used to read like crazy. I used to go to the library pretty much weekly and couldn't leave a bookstore without an armload. I even kept a list in the back of an old journal of all the books I'd read. It was always interesting to go back and look over the list a year later to see which ones stood out. Some I'd remember vividly, others I could barely place. Now I am an affront and should have my library card revoked.


Lately, I have not been a very good reader at all. I don't know what it is, but I have a hard time sitting down and focusing. Mostly, I think working long hours with lots of overtime has gotten me out of the habit. I have a theory about pre-sleep laziness and the current lack of a bedside lamp also being a factor, but we won't go into that here. It is too slothfully shameful.

For a bit after I got the Kindle for Droid app, there was an upsurge in my reading - The Woman in White (so good!), Letters of a Woman Homesteader, the first few chapter's of Paulo Coehlo's Brida). Reading via Kindle is no book, but it's not as heinous as I'd anticipated and you can read in the dark even if it will never become dog eared with love or replace the tactile sensation of paper against your fingertips.


I finished a book about Islam around Christmas and did spent a couple weeks in early November listening to Bloodroot on cd (if you have a long commute, I recommend the audio version). Since at least January, I've been reading the first Flavia de Luce mystery for what seems like an eternity. I burned through most of it on a round-trip flight, but have been stuck a few chapters away from the end for months. The worst part is that it's not due to any fault of the book, which is in fact is charming and well written. Normally, it would be the kind of book that left me wanting to start a new one with the same author and characters immediately upon finishing. Really. I even checked the second volume out from the library in anticipation of wanting more.

So, in addition to the perennial "write more, lose weight and get in shape" (progress is being made - more about that another time!), I am adding "read more". My norm used to be 4-5 books a month, but I don't know if I can do that much. Finishing one would be nice for a start (yes, I'm looking at you, dear Sweetness at the Bottom of the Pie). Mmmm pie . . .