Tuesday, October 11, 2005

One goal I don't mind not achieving.

S, my partner, has a book titled So Many Books, So Little Time. It's about a woman who sets out to read one book a week for a year, but fails to reach her goal. With my usual depth of consideration, I thought I'd see if I could achieve what she couldn't. Surely, it wasn't all that difficult to read fifty-two books in one year.

Now, with just over eleven weeks left until the New Year, and not counting the two B.C. comic books, the score so far is;
Books: 39 Weeks: 41.
Short of setting aside a couple of days for nothing but reading or, as S would say, selecting something fluffy that only takes a couple of hours to read, it's most likely that I, too, will fail to reach the magical target.
But whether I make it or not, it has been a wonderful journey. I've been able to catch up with some of the titles considered "essential reading", which have somehow managed to evade me over the years. I'm talking, of course, about such masterworks as Nineteen Eighty-Four, Brave New World and Tuesdays With Morrie. Of the others, On Beulah Height was a stand-out, along with the Harry Potter series (although I have to admit the jury is still out on Harry Potter And The Half-Blood Prince; I'm not sure how I feel about that one yet). The Sand Pebbles was a wonderful surprise, and The Flight Of The Falcon was as good an introduction as any to the works of Daphne Du Maurier; her precision with the English language is a breath of fresh air. And when it comes to non-stop action, Ice Station leaves you panting.
It's still possible, I suppose, to actually get fifty-two books read before the New Year, but even if I don't make it, I've sure as hell had a great time running the race.
And there's always next year, right?

7 comments:

Pirate said...

Its a great task for any reader to read 50 plus books annually but it is done more then one would think . Some of us read four or five at a time. Now that is a task worth attempting.

Gina E. said...

And some people don't have to go to work for a living either...when you have retired Pete, you will probably read 100 books in a year! Thanks for lending me "Ice Station" before you had read it yourself - it sure is an ACTION book!!

Pirate said...

I would love to have you participate in the short story idea I suggested in any capacity you would like. Interested?

Pirate said...

The landing of the first fleet. Was it a Pirate fleet?

Pirate said...

Where are you?

Crookedpaw said...

No not a pirate fleet. It was full of criminals, though

Gina E. said...

Gosh Pete, that's a pretty broad statement!!! Some Aussies might resent their ancestors being referred to as common 'criminals', when in fact quite a few of the people on board were officials sent to establish the colony, not to mention police to keep the crims under control!