A couple of days ago I finished reading my hundredth book of the year. That's way earlier than normal, thanks in part to audiobooks on the iPod. I should be able to finish 2008 with somewhere around 120 books, which again, is a lot for me, a fairly slow reader. Of course I'll post my Best of 2008 lists in fiction, non-fiction, YA/J-Fic, etc., but what I wish I'd kept up with this year is the number of books I've given up on. It's gotta be at least 25 books and maybe closer to 40.
Why? Life's just too short to be stuck in a bad book. But to be fair, some of the books I've given up on are not bad, they're just not the right book at the right time.
To alleviate this problem, I've gotten into the habit (and it's too early to tell whether it's a good or bad one) of checking out books from the library, reading the first chapter or two, then making a note of whether it's something I want to keep reading, something I'd like to come back to, or something I never want to see again.
Case in point: A couple of weeks ago I checked out Presidential Debates: The Challenge of Creating an Informed Electorate by Kathleen Jaimeson and David Birdsell, which early on is fascinating. The same can be said for the more recent Inside the Presidential Debates: Their Improbable Past and Promising Future by Newton Minow and Craig LaMay. Yet with less than one week to go in the election, I know I'll be more inclined to read both of these in the coming months.
Maybe that's why I currently have 14 books checked out from the library and another 7 on hold. That's really not too bad. I have had both in the double digits, so I'm sort of in a slump.
But no, I will not (You can tempt me with candy corn, but it won't work.) reveal which books I gave up on because they....well, stunk. But maybe I'll tell you the ones I should have given up on.
We'll see. It's only October...
No comments:
Post a Comment