Race to 52 - 18 days remaining

I'm feeling like this is possible again after making it through a quarter of Lowboy, a book that I picked up with a B&N gift card my wife gave me for my birthday a couple of years ago, in about an hour last night. Lowboy is a shortish book, 250 pages or so, with lots of white space on each page. I should be able to finish this one by the end of the week, Friday orSaturday. I wasn't really feeling the book in the first couple dozen pages, but I was hooked by the time I closed the book for the night. I'm hoping to ride this momentum and get through another big chunk tonight. I've already read my daily quota of Swann's Way so I can focus on Lowboy. Note that The Caine Mutiny is not really in play at the moment. I did not fully appreciate the heft of that book when I started reading it. It's fantastic and something that I will definitely get back to, but I need to see significant progress from my reading time right now. Reading a book for the sake of finishing a book is not the noblest of motivations, but that's where I am right now. 

I'm going to read no matter what. It's just a question of what I choose to read. Making progress towards 52 books is the way I want to spend my reading time right now. Lowboy gets me there faster than The Caine Mutiny. There is also something to be said for the amount of time that has passed since I bought a particular book. Reading something I've been skipping over for awhile feels like it's more in the spirit of Bookshelf Zero. I've had Lowboy longer than Caine. I bought The Caine Mutiny as a Kindle Daily Deal on Christmas Day last year. I haven't had it for a year. I've had Lowboy for over 4 years. I think it lived in the drawer of my night stand for awhile after I skipped reading it for a few months and there was no room on any of my shelves. The history of Lowboy gives the progress that I've made that much more significance. Finishing the book will close a loop that I opened on Valentine's Day 2012. 

Swann's Way is the epitome of a book that feels good to read because I've been trying to read it forever. My failed previous attempts made picking it up again made it that much more intimidating to start again. The end is in sight. It will be fantastic to finish. I should really start the next volume right away. We'll see if I have the courage to keep going after finally beating volume 1.