Long overdue update

I've started several posts updating my reading progress, but I end up getting pulled into other activities before I get a chance to finish them up and get them on the blog. Rather than going into detail about all that I've read since my last update, I will just say that I'm at 149 books to read (after a brief dip down to 148).

I spent most of August reading The Wise Man's Fear. It's a very long book. A fun and engaging read, I never felt like it was dragging despite the mountain of pages, that still took me a long time to finish. I read a couple of other books along with that one. I zipped through The Ghost Brigade to get it read before my online loan period ended. I waited three months to get that book. I didn't want to wait another 3 months to get another crack at it. I finished it on the last day of my two week loan period because I was trying to get all of Excession, my fourth Culture book, read before my vacation ended. I was very close to meeting that goal, I finished at home the day we got back. I also read a narrow philosophy book that I've had for ages. I believe I mentioned it in a previous post. I've kept thinking about Varieties of Presence weeks after finishing it up so it was a worthwhile read.

So I'm steadily working my way through my owned books while managing to avoid accumulating too many more of them. The online library loans have been an essential escape valve for the buying urge. I just finished World War Z. That's not something I would have picked up if it wasn't on that NPR list and it definitely not something that I would have purchased. The wonders of modern technology certainly have their place in an activity as ancient as reading. I have another ebook loan teed up and ready to go in my Kindle library. I may get started on that soon.

I have been reading one of my owned print books. The Horse's Mouth. I bought it at a library book sale more years ago than I can remember. It somehow made it through my book purge a couple of years ago. It's in remarkably good shape for a used library book. I suspect it was never checked out. I pulled off the library tags and it looks brand new. I am right around page 150 so I've built up enough momentum to keep plugging away until the end. It's not the best book, but it's amusing and not a particularly challenging read. It's not overly long either. That's definitely a point in its favor.

My next finished book gets me to my goal of reading 30 books this year. That either means I've read much more than I planned this year or I have been spending less time reading big, fat intimidating books this year. It's actually a bit of both. The books I have borrowed from the library have all been pretty quick reads. Those titles have added some nice bulk to my reading this year. I have also not been doing a nice job of avoiding the really nasty books on my shelf. I've finally gotten around to reading books I've owned for years and years, but I'm still slipping around the really hard stuff. Maybe later this year...