I had good intentions when I made a list of books to read before heading to Disney World. The trip is complete, but the same thing cannot be said about any of the reading plans that I laid out in my last post. I have finished five books since I read the last page of Surface Detail. Three of them were ebooks borrowed from the library, one was an ebook that I bought after starting the book while I had it out from the library (it was long, The Priory of the Orange Tree), and the fifth one was a physical book that I borrowed from the library. No books that I own were read, no Roth, nothing from the top shelf of the bookcase in my garage. I haven't even made much progress on the Civil War book. Oh well.
None of those things are part of my current reading activities either. I just read a handful of pages from The Last Samurai during a break at work. Well, this is an ebook that I own so I guess it's in one of my stated reading goals. I bought the book when it was a daily deal a couple of months ago. This is the top book of the 21st Century Canon that I've been sampling over much of this year. I knew I was going to read it eventually so I figured I might as well pick it up for cheap. It's an excellent book. I'm withholding judgement on it's place on that list until I finish the novel. That should actually happen pretty soon.
I've been reading Amusing Ourselves to Death while I'm hanging out with my kids in the morning. It's a handy physical book to pick up when I don't want to set the being on your phone all the time is acceptable example. It's short, engaging, and very relevant to our current pop culture obsessions. I will probably not remember much of it in a couple of months (that happens all too often with these easy to read nonfiction books), but it's something that I'm glad to have read. The Civil War book, The Destructive War, has not been officially abandoned but I haven't picked it up in weeks. The vacation is one reason I haven't read much of it, but the time I spent reading The Priory of the Orange Tree is also a big contributor to my lack of progress. That was a long book. It was easy to read 4 or 5% of it a night, but that consumed pretty much all of my reading time. We'll see if I switch back to that as my handy physical book after I finish Amusing Ourselves to Death.
I started reading The Crystal Shard on the train down to Disney World. I zipped through 100 pages or so in a pretty short period of time. I thought I might finish it during the vacation, but I did absolutely no reading while on Disney property and lost a huge reading window when our train was cancelled due to Hurricane Dorian. This is a book I will quickly finish after I complete The Last Samurai.
Damn, I knew I had a few reading balls in the air, but this is crazy! No wonder I feel scattered (at least when it comes to my reading life)!
