Collections

I have added The Horse's Mouth to my collection of completed books. I have moved it from the to be read pile, a place of angst and vexation, to the glory of the read list. Let me gesture to the six hundred and some long list of books that I have read. My virtual book shelf bursts with all kinds of interesting reads. I'm oh so cultured and refined! The Collector also recently joined the read list. It has a nice cameo appearance in an episode of Criminal Minds. That's where I first heard of it. I read another book by the author, The French Lieutenant's Woman, and found that appealing enough. I put a hold on the ebook at the library and waited for my turn to access the file. That time came right as I was finishing up Never Let Me Go. I only had a few days to get through The Collector. I wasn't sure I was going to get the entire book read, but I made a push on the last day of my loan period and made it to the end.

The captive in The Collector, holds the collector (as a general class of consumers of what creatives like her produce) in very low esteem. They fail to adequately feel the power of Art. Possession dominates the experience of the sublime. I couldn't help seeing myself in that characterization. I find myself more interested in the acquisition of a book, replacing the act of reading a book with a deeper appreciate and experience of a novel. The obsessive recording of my reading activities should hold little appeal if I was truly interested in expanding my living experience through books rather than adorning myself with the proxy of a deeper aesthetic experience by listing the titles of all the highly acclaimed books that I have looked at page by page, word by word.

I'm over dramatizing the depravity of my reading experience. I experience far more of the books that I read than anything that I ever record here or anywhere else. The experience of all my books is captured in me. Not every book is captured in an equal degree, but they all leave their mark and add a few more lines of code to the software that is my lived experience. Reading books is no flaunting of wealth or claiming access to some exclusive cultural capital. My lists are just a way to capture a largely ephemeral experience. They also show how my world and experiences have shaped me into the largely conventional person that is just trying to live his life.

I come to the crux of what I really wanted to write a few minutes before I told myself I would go to bed. At least I made it this far. I live in an acquisitive era. Accumulation has been elevated to the highest of virtues. Physical object, varied experiences, or a moment captured in the pixels of a phone are all equally valid ways to acquire meaningful things. The experience has been elevated above the object, but acquisitiveness remains at the core of our meaning making. We turn our back on family and important relationships to pursue degrees and career paths that have attained irrationally high levels of cultural value. Excessive material comfort trumps the psychological riches of deep and meaningful relationships. We seek to find our place in the world by surrounding ourselves with the paraphernalia of opulence rather than nurturing the relationships that bring richness and depth to our experience. Luxury is a sorry remedy for loneliness. The two friends who get to spend a two hour plane ride deep in conversation are having an experience much more profound than the few drinks the business traveler in first class tosses back while writing emails about a project that he wouldn't care about a lick if he wasn't getting paid to take some many flights around the country that the airline rewards him with access to the acquisition of one of the wide seats at the front of the plane.

I'm sometimes not sure if I'm collecting reward points with my reading or spending my time conversing with a friend. It really depends on the book. The Horse's Mouth was a project read. The Collector was hurried due to circumstances, but it was more than just reading the book to say I read it. That's the way I need to look at this project. Every book comes to me in its own way with its own impact. I'll deal with some real dreck, but I will also read books that will impact me long after they are added to the read list (which currently stands at 627 books; 149 owned books waiting to be read (that number will be dropping to 148 soon).

Rule breaking (of a rule I imposed on myself)

I violated my not rule of not buying a book if I'm at xx9, I was at 149 unread owned books on Friday. I checked the Kindle Daily Deal, as I do every day, and saw that The Hydrogen Sonata, book 10 of the Culture series, was on sale for $2.99. That's $7 cheaper than the normal ebook price and several more dollars cheaper than the paperback. I bought the book after asking my wife what I should do. She said it was $7 more to spend at Disney World. I made the purchase.

Thinking about it now, it would have been a mistake for me not to buy the ebook regardless of some silly rule I put in place to rein in my rampant book buying desires. I'm planning on reading all of the Culture books so they are in essence already in my reading queue. They are not available at the library so if I'm going to read them, I'm going to have to buy them. I wasn't pushing into new book reading territory with this purchase. I was filling in a gap that I will have to address in the not to distant future anyway. So I'm back up to 150.

I could have saved myself this ludicrous exercise in maintaining some kind of self-imposed consistency if I could get through The Horse's Mouth. It's taken me over a month to get about three quarters of the way though a 400 page book. It's not a bad book, I would just rather read something else. I'm trying to make sure I read at least 10-15 pages a day, but I'm not always very consistent in meeting that goal. It's particularly hard when I have much more intriguing reads going on my phone. I started Never Let Me Go after finishing Leaving the Atocha Station. I was just checking out the first few pages to see if I should read that or one of my other borrowed ebooks next. I was sucked in before I had a chance to consider anything else. The Horse's Mouth just has nothing to offer that compels me to spend time with it rather than Ishiguro's much more gripping (and better written) story. It's hard to put down Never Let Me Go.

I will probably finish Never Let Me Go well before I finish The Horse's Mouth. If I managed 15 pages a day, a very modest goal that would take me 20 minutes to meet, I would finish The Horse's Mouth in about a week. I need to get that book behind me. I picked it up to get another owned book down before reading Inversions, the sixth Culture book, thinking it would be pretty quick. Big mistake. My book reading pace has been maintained, I've read 4 library books while slogging through The Horse's Mouth, but Book Shelf Zero progress has ground to a crawl.

The rationalization contortions I have put myself through over The Hydrogen Sonata merits a revisit to the real purpose of Book Shelf Zero. Yes, part of it is getting to books that I want to read but have not yet gotten around to, but it's also prevents me from jumping into a reading project by buying a bunch of books only to get distracted from that reading project when the next interesting option shows up. I could have really gone crazy and bought at least 3 books from the 21st Century Canon list while at a used book store on Friday. I found several without looking that hard and they were having a buy 2 get one free offer. That would be 3 new books for less than $10. Book Shelf Zero has become ingrained deeply enough that I relied on that goal to walk out the door empty handed (but with the knowledge that I have a rich source of certain books available for a few bucks).

The battles I set up for myself are getting a bit ridiculous. Don't buy that, read more of this, get to this book before my loan period ends. It's draining!