Serious reading slump

It's been two weeks since I finished a book. I borrowed Choke from the
library after hearing the author on Rogan (don't want to look up his
name, it's the guy who wrote FIght Club). I started reading Henderson
the Rain King but wasn't making good progress. I actually started
Choke after Henderson. Choke wasn't anything particularly special. It
wasn't bad, but it wasn't anything particularly good either. I impulse
purchased a Kindle Daily Deal book called The Reading List. I thought
that might get me out of my funk, but it was terrible. It was so bad I
returned it. I had no interest in finishing it. So much for that plan.
I haven't abandoned Henderson yet, but I need to start making progress
soon of it will join the tried once but didn't finish Goodreads shelf.

I am flying home tomorrow. (Not sure if it's really home anymore, but
it's where my family lives so that's enough to make it home for me.
Maybe it's home 1 while the house down here is home 2.) I'm in the
middle seat on both flights and it will be dark so I was going to get
something from the Sci FI list from the library that I can read on my
phone. I pulled up the list to see what is available (I've italicized
the titles that I have seen in the library catalogue in the list I
keep in Google) when I saw the Drizzt books. I fished the next one out
of the boxes of books that I have yet to unpack at the house. (I would
probably have moved on to something else if I had the books out where
I could see them. All in good time.) I'm not sure how much of it I can
read on the plane tomorrow, but I should have time to read it while
I'm home. I will have stuff to do around the house and I plan on
getting in some good runs, but an easy book to read will be a good way
to spend some time too.

I should take a Dickens book. That's the most accessible reading
resolution that I have for this year. Oliver Twist is the shortest one
that I have left to read. Little Dorritt is realistic. Dombey and
Sons, not so sure about that beast. It would also be another owned
book read. I guess I'll see if I can find Little Dorritt in my book
boxes...

Did some math blah blah

Would be down to 75 books to be read
Would be finish in May of 2025

A week into setting time aside to read

The defined reading time is working reasonably well so far. I finished
reading Sex at Dawn tonight. I had just started the book when I
decided to define a reading time. I would still be in the middle of
the book if I hadn't defined a time to read. Picking up the book and
getting started is the hardest part of reading in the evening. Once
I'm going, it's not hard to keep going. Getting away from all the
other low energy requirement activities is the challenge. Sex at Dawn
is not a particularly challenging read so that always helps too. It
wasn't a particularly good book either. I've read enough of these
books attempting to link our drives to our ancient past that I can see
through the flimsy arguments. They all seem to start with a desired
conclusion and build an argument with scant evidence and ample
speculation. You want to prove we're all slutty, there is data for
that. You want to prove that we're all driven to be in life long pair
bonds, there are data for that. We're highly social creatures with a
tremendous aptitude for adaptation. We can become whatever we need to
become. The only way to be human is to expand to fill your niche as
fully as possible.

So another owned book (that I've been curious to read for awhile) has
been removed from the I'll get to it someday pile. I took a peek at my
Resolutions to see if there are any other goals that I could pursue
with my next reading choice. Get my to read pile under 140 is not
happening but reading something I own is in the spirit of the goal. I
set a goal to read 5 Modern Library books. I've read 2 this year (The
Heart of the Matter and Death Comes for the Archbishop) so there is
hope I could get to 3. I could read a Dickens book. I'm not seeing
Dickens in my immediate future, maybe later this month. I'm thinking
Henderson the Rain King will be my next reading effort. I also have
Ginger Man on my phone. Those are both Modern Library books. They're
also pretty short. The effort starts tomorrow. Time to go to bed.

GROWing towards Book Shelf Zero

I had some largely useless training at work last week (some things
never change) that I was pretty much ready to forget the second I left
the room. The awful trainer was wrapping up the course by reviewing
GROW. The idea was to use the framework to develop a strategy for
achieving a well-defined (preferably measurable) goal. As she was
walking her victim through the approach, I decided that I would
subject my long standing reading goal to this coaching technique. I
will not belabor the details of the framework. Do a little searching
and you will likely find more than you ever wanted to know about
realizing a goal.

The Goal in this case is well-defined. Read all the books I own.
That's a big goal with a very simple solution, read more and buy less.

I want to say that simple statement obscures a more complex situation,
but that isn't Reality. Meeting my reading goals always comes down to
choosing to read rather than waste time on my phone, play video games,
or take a walk. I've explored this topic before, but deciding to read
rather than do something else is always the conflict. The fact that I
have to make a choice to read or do something else is an interesting
wrinkle. I have a set time to run (first thing in the morning), lift
(currently in the morning but that may shift back to lunch time), and
work. I leave reading to find its own place in my day. I mentally
pencil in reading time for the evening, but it's never a priority. I'm
happy to watch a football game while messing around on my phone or
something else right up until I'm ready for bed. Should I designate a
reading time?

Reading time is certainly an Option. The length of that time is one
thing to consider, but that could be decided by how much time I have
to allocate for reading. Looking at my regular weekday, I could read
after I eat dinner, after I get off the phone with T, or make it the
last thing I do before bed. I am pretty much always finished eating by
6:30. I usually talk to T at 8:30 so I could allocate some portion of
that two hours to reading. I could also read after I get off the phone
with T. That could be from 9:45 to 10:30 or so. Right before bed is
when I usually squeeze in a few pages. The big issue with right before
bed is fatigue. Drifting off while reading in bed is not uncommon. So
that leaves after dinner or after my phone call. I like to walk or do
other errands after dinner. That leaves after my call with T.

How Will I implement this plan? Well, how long will I read? At least a
half hour feels appropriate. I could always read longer, but a half
hour ensures that I get a good 20-30 pages of my current book read.
That's 100-150 pages over a week. Throw in some reading on the
weekend, and that's approaching a book a week pace. I will start
tonight. Not sure how much I will read on Thursday, Friday, and
Saturday as I'm moving out of the apartment and into our house, but I
will make my best effort. Not sure how much I will be moving that late
in the day anyway.

I will give it a week or two and report back.

Nearing the end of this awful Riftwar series

My predictions on Drizzt were sound. I managed to get that one wrapped up quickly. I pretty much focused on the events of Menzobarizon over what happened in Monticello and France so I have still not finished the Hemingses. I read a couple of chapters. I will finish it eventually. 

I started reading a book about an object from outside our solar system, Extraterrestrial, just to see what the book was like. I got into it and ended up finishing that on the plane ride back up to Vriginia. It was a short read. It had a different angle than I anticipated, but I am sympathetic to the frustrations of institutional inertia against new ideas. New ideas are risky. People who live in big organizations are highly risk averse. That was a book I owned (bought when it was on the Daily Deal) so I was able to check another one off that list. The Drizzt book (Starless NIght, for the record) was also a book I owned. They were both ebooks so I didn't lighten my physical shelves at all with those two. 

The book I"m reading now, A Darkness at Sethanon, is a physical book. I picked Beyond Psychology over this one just about 6 weeks ago. I read it on the plane flight back. That was a lucky stroke. That chunk of time got me deep enough into the book that I was sure to keep going to the end. I was feeling bogged down in the middle, but it picked up in the second half. I have less than 100 pages and there was finally a reference to Sethanon. The book is not good. It's very trite and the dialogue is so stilted and awkward. The pacing isn't good, the characters are boring, and it's just not a very exciting story. If I wasn't doing this NPR list (and I didn't have a Resolution to read a series this year) I would have left this series after the first book. I will be happy to have it finished in the next couple of days. 

My Florida life is moving faster than I anticipated when I was thinking about what it would mean to live down here by myself for several months. My time in this apartment could be ending soon, fingers crossed all goes well, and I could be in a house. I think my life will be much better in a house. I wish the schools were better in the area around my apartment because I prefer this area, but I"m sure I will adjust to Palm Harbor quickly enough. My books will be moved again. Maybe I will actually get a few of them read soon.

Beyond Psychology, finished

It took almost 3 weeks, but I have finished Beyond Psychology. I was trying to decide if it was a good choice to start my time down here with a challenging book like that or whether it would have been better to pick up something a bit more engaging. I could have built some momentum by reading a couple of Drizzt books or something equally fast, but finally finishing a book that I started and abandoned is a good precedent. That book lived in the back seat of my car for a long time. I would see it, think I need to get back to it, and forget about it again. I no longer have to worry about getting back to it. 

The main point of the book is solid, we are highly irrational creatures who think we are rational, but the data he used to support his points, myths and beliefs of early cultures, were tedious reading. I feel enlightened having read the book but I'm in no hurry to get back to Otto Rank.

So what's next? I am going to zip through a Drizzt book. I want to read something that is fun. I read a couple of chapters today and will likely read more before I call it a day. I also read a chapter of the Hemingses today. I think this is the 4th time I've checked it out. I have about half of the book to go. This book is not as tedious as Rank, but it's very long and dense. I feel like I've read a big chunk, but my progress has barely moved. I have had this book sitting in my Goodreads currently reading for a long time. Everytime I open that app I see that I have not finished this book. I want to get it done. It's interesting and a good read. I've just made the choice to read other stuff before this one and by the time I get to it my loan period ends. We'll see if Drizzt keeps me from it again. I don't think that will be the case but you never know.

I expect to see my reading progress pick up a bit over the next couple of months. I really need to start just hanging out in my apartment. Getting a house will be a big reading time boost as I won't spend hours a week driving by houses, but a couple of hours of just hanging out during the weekend needs to become a habit. That is part of my motivation to read something fun. It's much easier to stay here and read when I have something pleasant to read rather than forcing myself to make it through a handful of pages about the development of a sexual identity. This coming weekend will be a test. I'm back in Virginia the weekend after that so reading will take a back seat to spending time with the family.  

Another week down

I've managed to get through another week of my Florida adventure. Work is going fine. It's challenging not feeling like I'm really contributing, but I'm getting a handle on the process and information flow. I just need to be patient, keep finding ways to contribute, and slowly take over the group. It's going to be a process that takes time. I can manage that. 

I'm still reading Beyond Psychology. In a previous post I wondered if I would have the mental energy to do much reading while I was learning a new job and figuring out how to live on my own (temporarily!). My mental energy is there, I just have other things to take care of. Cooking dinner, walking, talking to T. There isn't much time to squeeze reading in around all of that. I get in a few pages before heading to bed, but it's not like I'm reading for hours on end. I'm not going to do much reading tomorrow as I will be heading to WDW to get my annual pass and see Happily Ever After one last time. I'm also running in the morning, driving to the beach for the run, and I am looking at a couple of houses before I head to Orlando. I may read on Sunday.

I think I will be more willing to read when I pick up an exciting book. Beyond Psychology is very interesting and worth reading, it's just not exactly a thrilling page turner. I may read some Drizzt or something else zippy and fun to get some reading momentum going before I pick up another challenging read. It will also be easier to read when I have a comfortable chair. The beach charis are fine for the beach, but they are sub-optimal for a nice lengthy reading session. My foton comes next week. I wouldn't be surprised if my reading pace picks up after that is put together (yet another activity that I will need to take care of one or two nights that week).

Progress

I have pushed past the point where I got stuck in my first attempt at Beyond Psychology. I finished the chapter where I stopped reading while sitting on the beach this afternoon. It was a lovely way to spend 40 minutes or so. I always want to read at the beach, but my family usually takes my attention away from whatever book I am trying to read. It was nice to read, but I would rather have my family with me. I spent most of the afternoon running errands. I started my day with a run, which was not very good but at this point I'm just trying to get back into a consistent running routine, and the afternoon exploring and getting a few things that I need to make my life a bit better. I did squeeze in 20 minutes or so of reading before I headed out for my errands. I took a beach chair and my book with me to make sure I had the option to stop at a beach and read. I'm glad I did. I wanted to read some more this evening, but I got wrapped up in other stuff. 

I have no real plans for tomorrow. I want to hit the gym and I will talk to T while taking a walk (doing our best to maintain our Sunday morning walk while being several states apart). I will likely watch football. It's been years since I watched network coverage of the games. I've always watched on Red Zone. At least there will be two games on during both the 1 and 4 windows. I will make an effort to read a bit at some point. I don't want to lose my Beyond Psychology momentum.

A quick observation about my new living location. I really like living here. I like the proximity to the beach, I like living in an area with so many sports teams, I like that I have to resist the urge to just drive to DIsney World. The only thing missing is my family. They will be here soon. I just have to make it a few months. Once they are here, things are going to be really great. 

Two days in...

I'm two days into my adventure of living in Florida. I've been taking care of several small tasks and starting a new job so I haven't exactly been bored. One small task that I took care of my first night here was getting my books on the one small bookshelf that I brought with me. I knew I brought more books than I had room for on the shelf. There are books on the top of the bookcase and a small pile on the floor. I will box up books as I finish them so maybe I will be able to get the books off the floor relatively soon. Time will tell. 

I started reading Beyond Psychology on the flight down. I tried reading the book a year or two ago, but I got bogged down about a third of the way through. It sat in the backseat of my car, ignored and unread after I abandoned it . I rescued it before I traded in the car and dropped it in my bag as I was packing up the night before my flight. My original plan was to read the 4th book of the Riftwar Saga on the plane. I thought it would be nice to get that series wrapped up before I started pursuing other reading goals. Beyond Psychology won. The first chapter is great. The second chapter starts strong and gets bogged down in primitive culture stuff. The third chapter gets a little pedantic too. That's what held me up last time. We'll see if I can make it through the entire chapter this time. 

I did finish Death Comes for the Archbishop while we were here moving me in. The book is still on my nightstand. It was very solid. It wasn't quite what I expected, but I was pleasantly surprised by the story. I lived in New Mexico for a decent chunk of my youth. That personal connection resonated with me. It's definitely worthy of being a Top 100 novel. 

I'm going to cut this post short so I can spend some time actually reading. I need to decide the best time for me to read. Is it in the evening right before I go to bed? Is it in the early evening? How much will I read on the weekend? I think the weekend will be big reading time. I'm thinking of taking a beach chair and a book and heading to a park we stopped at while doing some family exploration. I can get many pages read in an hour or so of hanging out at the beach. 

The Underminer!

I'm my own worst enemy when it comes to achieving Book Shelf Zero. I have acquired 8 books over the last few days. I ordered 4 from Thriftbooks and traded some books I had in my office and on the shelves at home to get store credit at 2nd and Charles. I used that store credit to buy 4 books. At least I bought books that further my already established reading goals. I have the next Drizzt trilogy line up (1 ebook, 2 print). I bought a Roth book (a fairly skinny one), and a ML Top 100 book (The Naked and the Damned). Duman Malone volume 3 (I'm pretty sure I have packed volume 2 but I won't be sure until I load the shelves in Clearwater). I even picked up a book from the Contemporary List, Volume 1 of My Struggle. I tell myself I did well by keeping my purchases in line with my reading goals, but I'm still adding more to the pile faster than I am making the pile smaller.

I did make the pile smaller by removing some books that I decided I didn't want to read. I removed a book on leadership, it was one of the books from my almost empty office, and a Sci-fi book that I bought used ages ago. It was long and I had no interest in it at this point. So I added 8 but removed 2. My book count stands at 166. And I wanted to get below 140 this year. I guess I should be getting busy.

Just over 300 days

I finished reading a skinny, easy to read book tonight. I packed a box of thick, challenging books to take with me to Florida. The Perks of Being a Wallflower is something I saw on bookstore shelves for years. I was never really intrigued enough to buy it, but when I saw it on a list of important books from the 90s I decided to see if the library had it. They did, I put a hold, it was available pretty quickly, and I read it pretty quickly. It was so cliche and obvious. Every teen after school special was in it. All the significiers of interesting and unconventional people were there. It wasn't bad. It was just flat. Maybe I'm just the wrong audience. It's hard to relate to a teenager when you're in your 40s.

The books I packed up were the opposite of Wallflower. They were all thick and dense. These are my aspirational books. They are the things I would like to be reading. If I'm ever going to read some of these things before I'm retired, this will be the time. What else am I going to do? I will avoid putting games on my phone. I've never been able to just sit and watch sports. I can't gamble on my phone in Florida so I won't have a financial interest in the games. That will leave plenty of time for distraction free reading. This could be my chance to see if I can read the really dense stuff that I buy because it's something I want to read someday. War and Peace, The Magic Mountain, some very heavy history books. James and Balzac. I don't need to read all of them. It would be nice to make it through a handful of them. 

I have just over 300 days until my family will be joining me in Florida. That's about 40 books if I average 1 a week. I've probably packed about 60 to 70 books. THrow in what I have on my phone and I will have 100 books to choose from. I will definitely not read them all, but I can make a pretty decent dent.  

A New Reading Project is Born!

I packed up some of my unread books for my year of (partial) isolation. Another group of books to read, another reading project is born! At first I thought listing all of these books and checking them off would be the challenge, but now I think it's just the books read while I'm living alone in this apartment. This could be my chance to be a little more intentional. This could be the time to take in the big serious books that I've had for years. more focused and intentional reading will give me some direction and purpose. I will start a Goodreads shelf. Alta Clearwater.

I actually toured the apartment this week. It feels real now. Moving was still an abstract idea in my previous post. I'm not as worried about low mental energies now. I will be very surprised if my new job is as taxing as my current one. I won't be dealing with a massive organization that can't get out of its own way. I should be able to take on big fat books.

I managed to finish a book this week. I got to the end of The Heart of the Matter on the plane ride home. It was decent but not as good as other books on the Modern Library 100. The religious aspects of the character's motivation felt out of place. The attitude toward the native Africans is widely out of sync with current sensibilities, which is a plus. I should change my 3 stars to 5 just to give it a boost to keep this problematic book on the radar. This is the 51st book of the Modern Library 100 that I have read. (3 more needed to complete a New Year's Resolution.)

I'm very close to finishing a library book. More on that when I get it wrapped up. A bit under an hour left according to the Kindle app.

Still exploring reading projects

The resignation email has been sent, and I'm getting more acclimated to the idea that I will be living in Florida. I'm getting excited about it now. My trip next week will be the first time that I really get to look around. This is a big step. Planning the ways that I will fill my time remains a big priority. Exploring the possibilities makes this time feel a bit less scary so it's an exercise worth pursuing even if several of the projects never come to fruition. 

I tried one of the Alexa Codex books after checking it out from the library. I like how it feels. I picked up the first book in the series at B&N on my way home from picking up my new car. (Total aside, I've been coasting for months and months. I should have bought a new car months ago. The direction and energy that step has brought is very surprising). (Second aside, I'm pretty deep into the beer tonight so this post may be a bit wonky from a structure perspective. My apologies.) I've been into 90s nostalgia recently. I found a podcast about songs of the 90s (60 songs to explain the 90s), I've been watching The Darkside of the 90s with T, and I've been digging into Radiohead. Is there a good list of essential books from the 90s? Yes, there are actually several. I haven't found one that really resonates with me though. Roth's books are part of several lists so I could pursue that project. Wikipedia lists 29 books (according to my slightly drunk count). I have read 2 of them according to my Goodreads list. I may have read The Ghost Writer and Goodbye, Columbus, but I am not 100% certain of that. There are other reading projects that are more pressing and where I already own the books, but I am intrigued. 

Looking over some of the lists reminded me of several books that I saw on the shelves while I was in mall bookstores in the 90s. The English Patient was very big during that time. I checked that out from the library once but didn't really get very deep. Infinite Jest is a big 90s book. I own it. I suspect I will never read it (this is the kind of reading project I should be pursuing). The Perks of being a Wallflower is something that always caught my eye but I have never actually considered reading. Don Delillo's Underworld is another prominent 90s book that I own and have never read. I've read lots of Cormac McCartney but I"ve never read All the Pretty Horses. I saw the trilogy for sale once but talked myself out of getting it (maybe it was a print book with all three novels, not sure). There are some good possibilities here. I may have to make my own list and add that to my many reading projects. Maybe I'll actually complete one some day!

I'm going to add a few of these to my Thriftbooks cart. That may be the first thing that gets ordered to my new apartment...

A Big Wrinkle

So I've accepted a job in Florida. I had to come to terms with spending several months apart from my family to make this happen, but I made it over that obstacle. (I will come back for frequent visits and they will come down to see me so it's not like I will never see them.) I will need to fill up my time away with plenty of stuff to keep their absence from my daily life at bay. I'm guessing that reading will be something that I use to keep my mind busy while sitting alone in my apartment. Bring on the reading projects!

I read over my previous reading project post to see what might look like something to pursue in earnest. Reading Proust is a possibility. Malone's Jefferson bio is also a possibility. The book lists are always fun pursuits, but I'm looking for something I can complete in the 9-10 months I will be on my own. Chip away at Book Shelf Zero. Set a number target? I thought I had no shot at getting below 140 by the end of the year. I'm at 160. Twenty books is a possibility once I'm down there in September. That's four months. That's roughly 16 weeks. I will finish a few books before I head down there. That's very doable.

I'm writing like I will have a huge surplus of time to read. I will be working, obviously. Working out is going to be an important way for me to moderate my stress and empty feelings from separation. I may not have the mental energy to read (that has been a huge issue for the last year and a half). I will be talking to my wife and kids. I plan on writing them emails pretty regularly. I expect my weekends will be empty and that's when I will spend more time reading. I worry about what I will do on the weekends that I don't come back to visit. Looking for houses and exploring will take up some of that time. I may visit Disney if I end up getting an annual pass (and they lift the new mask requirements). Reading will be what I can do to fill the empty time.

Easier reading than Proust may be the better choice. Finish Drizzt? That's a 20 something book series. They are pretty short too. I could read one over the weekend with a little effort. That's progress on the SF list so there's double progress. There are plenty of series in that list that I could pick up. That may be the right place to start. Maybe I can transition to heavier fare after I have adjusted to my new job and have learned to live without my wife and kids in my life everyday. That feels like the ticket. Which one? I think I would prefer thin books over big fat ones. That lowers the chance of me picking a fat series like The Sword of Truth or The Outlander. The Vorkosigan Saga looks like it has shorter books. I'm intrigued by The Codex Alera, but they are fat books. Maybe that's not so bad? Drizzt books are short. Mixing a couple of series could be a way to things fresh. I really need a series like the Wheel of Time. That was a fun read. I couldn't put the books down. That's what I need. Something engrossing to keep me distracted from being away from my family. Maybe this Codex series is the way to go. I may just have to get one to check it out...

157, for now anyway

The quest continues. I finished reading the first volume of Duman Malone's lengthy biography of Thomas Jefferson about a half hour ago. A small step, but it's a step in the right direction. A part of me knows that Bookshelf Zero will never happen, but I don't see that as a reason to stop making my to-read pile as small as possible. I will keep reading, buying, and recording each book I finish and buy in whatever tools are availabe at the time. My New Year's Reolution to get my to read pile down to 140 plays its own role in my desire to keep reading while resisting the urge to buy. A related reolution, finishing a fantasy series, is guiding me towards my next reading seelction. I'm leaning towards Silverthorn. This is book 3 in the Rift War Saga. I borrowed books 1 and 2 from the library earlier this year. I picked up Silverthorn at 2nd and Charles. After thinking I had all the time in the world to get back to the series, I realized that we are already to June. Silverthorn isn't particualry long. I should be able to get through it fairly quikly (assuming it's mildly entertaining). My goal is to have it finished before we leave for Disney in not quite 3 weeks. I think this is a highly doable goal. I had my summer reading list last yeat. I forgot about that list until I was reading my old posts earlier this evening. I don't know if I want to make a list for this summer, but I have a few directions I would like to pursue after I finish Silverthorn. I have some good library books in my Kindle. I have a history of Jazz that I would like to read. I'm interested in teh subject, but I also want to read the author. I followed him on Twitter until I delected my account (I still pop in using the web browser) and always enjoyed his posts. I have volume 2 of the Jefferson bio. I would like to maintain that momentum. I bought a couple of Modern Library 100 books late last year. They are both laying low in the garage. One or both of those could be amusing reads. I always think I should read Don Quioxte while I'm at Disney World. He's part of the Small World ride. It's a long book that I will probably never read, but maybe I'll at least pick it up and read a few pages. Maybe I will be pleasantly surprised. I bought the Stormlight Archives book 1 and 3 at some point last year. Book 1 was for my son to try. He has read other Sanderson books and enjoyed them. Book 3 was for me. I listened to the audio version right after it came out. I have hesitated getting the Audible version of book 4 as I haven't been making much progress with audiobooks over the last year or so (although I'm really enjoying The Hunt for Red October). I wanted to go back through book 3 before consuming book 4 in whatever media I eventually end up choosing. I have been read a chapter or so in the morning. I could be reading something new, but I like revisiting a story. I can dip in here and there and keep the handle on the overall arc and flow. It will take me months to read the whole thing at my current pace. It wouldn't surprise me if I end up making it my primary reading book and just get through it quickly.