Truth and lists

         I'd like to think that the two books, a rollicking, comedic fantasy story and a memoir about a list of books, I read this week are a reflection of my eclectically good taste. However, that would sound too much like the author of the latter.
        So Many Books, So Little Time: A Year of Passionate Reading was quite the disappointment. Sara Nelson's memoir is about a year in which she undertakes reading one book a week and then writing about it. I love books; I love lists; I love challenges and goals. I love hearing about what other book-lovers are reading and enjoying. One would think this would be the perfect book to start off my own book-a-week journey.
        Unfortunately, I found this book extremely hard to plough through. It didn't feel like a book-lover's journal. It felt like someone who has to read for a living trying to buff up her resume by creating the most impressive and obscure book-list possible. While I did buy a few books from her list, many are out of print or so obscure and niche as to only serve to interest a small sliver of the population, let alone her readers. Her obsession with the covers and vacation books that will impress her fellow beach-goers is a bit repulsive to someone who loves books unabashedly. For an editor, I would hope she'd risen above such immaturity but it just reiterates that reading is a job to her and that, rather than analyse the merits of the books she is reading she would rather spoil the endings and then talk about her family making ever so tenuous a connection between the two. Because it is her job, she does make some good points about the content and got me thinking about how to better my own judgement and analysis of books and come away with a deeper understanding. However, she doesn't go deep enough into what is essentially the premise of her book; she is a pretentious snob who chooses her friends based on similar reading interest (how dismally boring) and her books on how impressive they seem. Adding insult to injury her list of books she read in the year is not comprehensive (probably because there are books she read that she is ashamed for her bosses to read about) and she sets too much store by her to-read list. If that counted for anything, I would be impressively well-read.

Thankfully, offsetting this, I had Terry Pratchett's The Truth. A hysterical fantasy novel and a great commentary on the newspaper business, this book had me in stitches. Terry Pratchett at his best and making me want more!

Another delightful act of serendipity was the fact that, at the start of my new reading challenge, I got to introduce Scott to my happy place, my personal mecca and the source of most of my books: Powell's. We came home with a delightful new stack of books some of which I'm sure I'll be writing about in the near future.

Prioritize and simplify

I feel like a fraud. I call myself a bookworm and talk about how I love to read and yet lately I've read about 3 books the two months and haven't cracked the pages of any on my book club list ( a new one; I've resigned myself to Scott's victory over the previous list). 

The wedding is over so the time I used browsing wedding websites, making lists, scouring second-hand stores and stressing is free for other things and unfortunately I'm seeing a pattern of tv filling that empty time way way too much. 

So I've come to the conclusion that something needs to change. Hence my new resolution: finish one book a week. 

I say finish because I have about ten  books started and finishing them will give me the same sense of accomplishment as starting from scratch. 

I fully expect to break this resolution most weeks. I hope not but at this stage I don't feel a lot of self-confidence in my discipline and preserverance. I feel like all I've accomplished this year was a wedding and I have so many regrets from that process that it makes me a bit wary if taking on new projects. However, reading is something I can do and an area where I know myself pretty well. I know what I like; I don't read to impress people; my taste is random and eclectic and has too large a share of children's lit and fantasy and sci-fi and self-help and chick-lit to make it on any laudable book list list. As long as I channel my taste reading is fun. 

I'm hoping to transfer a bit of that philosophy to other areas of my life. I was recently inspired by a wedding in which I was a bridesmaid. The couple did a great job prioritizing what was important and letting go of everything else regardless of people's expectations. The result was a simple affair that focused the attention on the beautiful couple, their love and their loved ones. 

So this is the plan for this fall 

1. Figure out my priorities. 

2. Simplify; weed out mine and others' unrealistic expectations. 

3. Find life-giving ways to focus on those priorities.