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.