So I’ve been home on maternity leave and done a bunch of reading. I’ve been trying to put a dent in my list and have decided for the summer to only read books on the list. I’ll have to make one exception when the new Hunger Games book comes out in August but that’s at the end of the month so it’s just about the end of the summer. So far in June I’ve read five books from my list. I’m down to 84 books total from the list and hoping to get through 10-15 more. I’m up at night and there’s not a lot on TV. It’s amazing how much you can get through in a half hour chunks. The only problem I’m having now is keeping up with reviews. I have three books that need to be reviewed still and I just wrote up three today. My son is starting preschool on Tuesday so I’m hoping to get some time to write then or when he’s napping. Here’s hoping that works out for me!
Updates
Ok a couple of updates just to let you know I’m still alive.
1) I have been reading just not updating anything.
2) I am pregnant! (Obviously the bigger news but since this website is about books how could that be second?) I haven’t been doing as much reading as I wanted because I’ve been sleeping a lot more. Hopefully this tiredness is going to lift soon, and I can get back on track after the holidays.
Since I last wrote, I’ve read The Lost Symbol by Dan Brown, The Lightning Thief by Rick Riordan, and I’ve almost finished Something Rotten by Jasper Fforde. So those reviews are forthcoming I hope.
Fail
What Progress?
I really thought I would be done Wintering by now. It’s only 292 pages but it really doesn’t move very quickly and I have to say I’m not that motivated to read it knowing how it must end. I wonder if writing about some one’s life is easier or more difficult when you know the end? Everyone knows that Sylvia Plath stuck her head in an oven and killed herself so this book can’t have a happy ending. I’m not sure if that makes it so much harder to read?
In other news, I did start Swann’s Way. I understand that this book is the book of all books but I didn’t think it would be so hard to read. I don’t mean hard as in not pleasurable but more like difficulty level. I’ve read lots of authors who were very influenced by Proust and they weren’t this hard to read so I guess I suspected this book would not be so difficult. I was wrong. It took me over an hour to read 48 pages mostly because there is hardly any dialogue and I have to look up a lot of words. So many words in fact, I have to sit in front of my computer while reading and that is not conducive to productive reading. Reading this on a Kindle would be so much easier! It’s a very aggressive schedule we’ve set for this book too. The person at work I’m reading this with has already read it so that’s kind of an unfair advantage don’t you think? I have 89 pages “due” tomorrow and I have no idea when I’ll find the time to read.
August Progress
So far this month it seems like I’m behind in my reading. The weekend away cut into some reading time but spending time with the family was fun.
Ok so this is what I have for August so far:
Revolutionary Road by Richard Yates 355
Ender’s Game by Orson Scott Card 324
Something Rotten by Jasper Fforde 373
The Sorceress By Michael Scott 488
The Other Boleyn Girl by Philippa Gregory 661 on page 338
Wintering by Kate Moses 292
Total pages 2,493
Total pages read 1,064
Total pages left 1,429 in 13 days! Which means I have to read 110 pages per day in order to finish!