Breaking my Book Backlog

June 11, 2006

(As of this writing, the TV behind me is showing the 2006 French Open finals between Roger Federer and Rafael Nadal. Nadal is down two games to nil in the first set. I’m rooting for Federer)

    I have this bad habit. I buy books, start to read them, and then never get to finish them. The result of this is a HUGE book backlog… one that I’ve decided to break.

    Not including books needed for school, my ratio of books bought to books finish is around 5 to 1… at best. Then again, maybe if you include books needed for school, that would still be the ratio.
Just to give you an idea:
In “The Count of Monte Cristo”, Edmond Dantès is still swimming after being thrown into the ocean…

…in “The Solitaire Mystery”, a little strange bearded man has just given Hans Thomas a magnifying glass…

…in “Jonathan Strange & Mr. Norrell”, Norrell has just fooled the French Army with his armada made of mist…

…in “Scar Tissue” (the biography of Anthony Kiedis, vocalist of the Red Hot Chili Peppers), Tony - barely into his teens - has just smoked his first joint…

…in “Angels & Demons”, the third papabili has just been murdered…

…in “Two Towers”, Sam and Frodo have just been captured by Faramir & Co…

… and I haven’t even opened “Veron God Little”, “The Life of Pi” and a good number of other books yet.

    So, now that I have all these unfinished books, I’ve decided to make a conscious effort to start finishing them… and to stop buying anymore books before that business is done. I’m not forcing myself to read at all… that would just be an empty cause. I still like reading… and in the past, I used to love reading… it’s just a matter of re-acquainting myself with it.

    I’ll probably pass up on some books though such as “Angels & Demons” and any Lord of the Rings book since the ending to those have been long spoilt. Right now, I’m around three-fourths into Jeffrey Eugenides’ “Middlesex”, and it’s coming along well.

    It’s a refreshing thing to have that feeling again of not wanting to put a book down in spite of hunger or drowsiness, and shutting out the world for a few hours and putting yourself inside a totally different one inside your mind.

(Going back to the French Open… Federer has just won the first set 6-1, but is down to Nadal in the second set 1-nil. Go Federer!)