The best laid plans...

Of course I didn't shift right into A Bend in the River after I finished The Mind of Thomas Jefferson. My wife and I finally checked out the local library on Saturday. I had this new library card so I had to check out something. I checked out The Sea. I've had it on my radar for awhile. I've checked out the ebook but didn't read a single page. The book is short and the font is large so I figured I could give it a shot. It's a short book so taking a few days to read it wouldn't cause a huge setback. I've read enough to know that I want to finish it. I probably would have finished it by now if I hadn't also checked out an ebook from my new library. I just picked a random book from the new classics list to get a sense of the online collection's depth. The book was there, Erasure, so I checked it out. I have it for two weeks. I made the mistake of starting this one too. It's better than The Sea. It's also a short book, about 6 hours or so according to the Kindle app, so I could theoretically get it read in my two week borrowing window. 

So I have three books going on simultaneously. A Bend in the River (I have read a few pages so it's not like I've abandoned it...again), The Sea, and Erasure. I should get serious and finish Erasure this weekend (it has the shorter loan period). That will free me up to wrap up The Sea before getting back to A Bend in the River. That's my current plan, but I guess there's an argument that a better plan would be to return them both and focus on the book that I own. That would depend on the goal. Reading good books? Reading them all is the right choice. Reaching my target of reading 35 books this year? Adding two short books to the list is a good step to realizing that goal. Bookshelf Zero? Using all my reading time to get through an owned book would be the right choice. I'm into all three so I'm going with the reading good books perspective. The extra books towards my reading goal is a bonus. 

My plan is still to get to The Count of Monte Cristo after A Bend in the River. Reading these other two books kind of helps make that happen as it will be easier to dedicate the time to such a big book if I have a couple more titles in the bank.

Reading plans for July (and an effort to convince myself of taking on a bigger challenge)

So here are my (always subject to change) plans as we roll into the second half of 2023. I'm almost finished with The Mind of Thomas Jefferson. It's a book by a historian for other historians. Plenty of interesting insight into the titular subject, but the undercurrent of how academic historians talk to each other also provides interesting stimulation. I have one and a half essays left to read. I will finish that one this week. I will quickly move on to A Bend in the River. I read a bit of this one before going back to the Jefferson book. I was sufficiently engaged, I just decided to pick up the Jefferson book again. A Bend in the River is physically short but my experience with this type of book is deep enough that I no longer confuse physical dimensions with the amount of time required to get through a carefully written work of literature. That puts us somewhere in the middle of July with 14 books read. 

The third Brandon Sanderson special project book is downloaded on my phone. That will be my 15th book of the year. These haven't been particularly long or challenging reads. I should get to 15 books read (and 170 books to go) before the end of the month. With 22 weeks or so left in the year, I would need to get to a book a week clip to make it to my goal of being under 150 books to read by the end of the year. Or I could bail on that goal and pick up a hefty long read. I could go back to reading two books at a time to get through a big book while maintaining a reasonable reading pace (I did this while reading Anna Karenina), but I'm not sure that system would work in my current circumstances. I also just don't really want to do that right now. 

I spent 3 months reading The Once and Future King last year. What would be the big deal if I spent a month or two reading The Count of Monte Cristo? I wouldn't get to 150 books by the end of the year, but I would have a large book (that many people seem to really love) checked off my list. I would demonstrate to myself that I have it in me to take on these big challenges again. Take on isn't the right phrase. I have the ability to succeed in reaching a big, challenging goal. I picked up the Malazan books because I thought it would be a challenge to read through those monstrosities. I knew they would take time and a focused effort to complete. I got through all 10 of them. I was successful in reaching a well defined long term goal. 

I haven't been successful in reaching many long term goals over the last few years. My energy has been dissipated into just making it through the day. My career is just kind of stumbling along. I'm doing better at applying meaningful effort, but I still have improvements to make. My marathon training, and physical fitness efforts in general, have been abysmal. I've finished the WDW Marathon twice since moving to Florida, but preparing properly is the real point of signing up for the marathon. I use the race as a framework for solid training that is aimed at making me more fit. That hasn't happened in the last two years. I've definitely run more than I would have without the race as motivation to put in long Saturday runs, but I haven't had the extended effort that is central to successful marathon training (like I know what that is). So just getting through a random assortment of short to medium length books to reach some arbitrary count at the end of the year isn't me applying a focused effort on a meaningful task. It's just going through the motions to feel like I'm doing something that I claim is meaningful to me.

The number of books I read, even the type of books that I read, isn't really the point of Bookshelf Zero. The point isn't to read the books. The point is to spend time on doing something that is meaningful. An evening spent scrolling social media on my phone or flipping through TV channels has a place in my life, but it's also important to stay focused on efforts that have a deeper and more meaningful impact on my life. I've spent 3 years watching my energy just dissipate into a nothingness morass. I've accepted any effort as evidence that I'm still engaged. I'm not looking for an edge or trying to reach new levels of performance. I've been coasting on past accomplishments. I've started to turn that tide, but real effort is going to be needed to make real progress. Getting fit, staying sharp, and staying engaged with a broader world of ideas and opinions are worthy ways to spend my time.   

Middle of 2023 update and musing on something that is very unlikely to happen

I need to step on the reading gas if I'm going to make my 2023 reading goals. I've read 12 books towards my 35 book goal. Goodreads says I'm 4 books behind. Sheesh. That's a big number. I'm really at a loss for how I used to read 40 or 50 books a year. I'm not sure what extra time I had back then that I don't have now. Maybe I just wasn't falling asleep at 9:30 every night.

The past is the past. Where am I right now? I succeeded in my self-imposed challenge to read a book while half my family was out of town. I read Platform. The challenge wasn't much of a challenge. It's not a particularly long book, but it's also a very smooth read. If all my books were like that, I wouldn't be facing a 172 book long reading list. I wasn't sure what to read after finishing Platform (which was my 12th book of the year). I had read the first essay in a collection of essays on Thomas Jefferson (I bought it at Monticello) before I read Platform. That didn't feel like the right choice so I grabbed A Bend in the RIver from my shelf. That feels like a maybe. I started it once before but quickly abandoned the effort. I read. few pages today, but I also read the second essay in the Jefferson book. We'll see what happens in this space over the next few days.

I was talking about long books with my daughter and she asked me what book is the longest I have read. Goodreads has a handy feature where you can sort books by page numbers so I was able to quickly determine that it was one of the Malazon books. I speculated that it might be one of those when she asked me. I also guessed that it might be It of The Stand (both in my top 5 along with two other Malazan books). I took a quick look at the longest books that I have on my to read list. Le MIs was the longest, but there were lots of history books and more serious novels. Looking at that list kind of makes me want to read one of those, but I'm not sure I'm ready to commit to a really huge book. I read Platform in 5 days, but that was only about 250 pages. I plan on reading all these ong books eventually, why not pick one up now? Just for the record, I think I would go with The Count of Monte Cristo (5trh longest pending read) or Don Quixote (12th longest) if I do decide to take on a really thick book.

Some Day

I have a nice long list of things that I will accomplish someday. They've all been a focus of my plans and short bursts of action, but I haven't really achieved much in the way of my long standing goals.

Get my weight around 200 pounds (after years of floating around 220 pounds, I'm currently around 230)

Read one of several fat books

Run some distance in some short period of time

Run an ultra

Read all the books I own

I'm not really taking concrete steps to make any of these plans really happen. I constantly trade short term comfort for some of these goals. It's actually getting kind of tiresome revisiting this topic again. 

When does someday become today?

Pausing for Progress


I'm trying to learn from last year and avoid weeks and weeks of slowly reading a single book. For Whom the Bell Tolls has not been a quick and effortless read. I'm keeping steadily at it, but it's not even a third read after two weeks. My pace has been about 10 pages or so a night. It's better than nothing, but that just won't do. My short book to read while reading something else radar has been up. I spotted a Rachel Cusk book on the shelf during a family trip to B&N Saturday night. I've had that in my Kindle library for months. I decided right there to pause Hemingway and pick up this slim volume for a week or so. Second Place is a fast read. I'm almost a third of the way through after a couple of days. This is my second attempt, but I'm not sure if the first try really counts. I think I read a bit on the plane on one of my trips back to Richmond last year. I was debating between a couple of books and ended up picking the other one. I've read Cusk's Outline trilogy. I would fail any test of my recollection of those books. Like so much of contemporary fiction, they are so slim and effortless that they just kind of slide over my consciousness. Maybe this one will stick a bit more given that I've read a bit of twice. We'll see.

I would be a much more successful reader if I could stay up at night. It seems like I'm dozing off every night around 10. Sometimes I rouse myself and read a few pages, but just going to bed is also a popular choice. It's hard to read books if I don't spend any time reading. It's hard to spend time reading if I'm asleep. Last week was my recovery period for the WDW Marathon. The recovery was partially physical, particularly giving my knee a chance to get back to a good point after the pounding it took on Sunday, but just not getting up early a couple of days was also part of the recovery plan. I'm shifting back into a more active mode this week. We'll see if it's sleep time or reading time once I have a few moments at the end of my day.

I did want to congratulate myself for reading a fair amount on Saturday before the marathon. There was plenty of social media activity for me to follow on the entire Marathon Weekend, but I picked up my book and read a few pages. I've realized that a big point of my reading (and fitness) goals is to regain the discipline to focus on long term goals. I look back on the effort I exerted on my MBA, law school applications, and other efforts with a bit of wonder. I always managed to find the energy to do the work that got me closer to those goals. I very much want to regain that mode of action. I got into so many bad habits during covid and living alone. These resolutions that I give myself sound kind of pointless, but they are a focus for my self-discipline and effort. That makes them worthy no matter their apparent material value.

While I'm talking about pausing books, I should mention I'm also putting an audiobook on pause. I've been dabbling in Patriot Games for a few months. I'm not sure I will finish it though. Once the endless competence of every character in those books jumped out at me, I haven't been able to just flow with the story. The book is mildly amusing, but I preferred Cardinal in the Kremlin and Hunt for Red October. I started listening to Election last night. Like Second Place, it's a short book. The audiobook is only a few hours. If all the character perspective changes were edited out it would probably be 15 minutes shorter. Podcasts are fine, but some other material would be fun to mix in on occasion. Do I really need to spend 3-4 hours a week listening to a couple of guys talk about college basketball games? Not really. An audiobook is a nice change of pace, especially when it's the same duration as a longer podcast.

Equilibrium Point

It's the fun resolution setting time of year. I guess I could be bummed that I missed most of last year's reading goals, but I enjoy the reset that comes with the new year. All the possibilities! I also like to use the last week or so of the year to purchase a few books, you know, one last splurge before I tighten things up and work on reading what I already own in the New Year. Not that my self-imposed buying restrictions are very successful. I read a few and buy a few. It's a cycle that just keeps on repeating itself. I supposed that I should just live with my buying habit and just hope to maintain some kind of equilibrium between reading old stuff and picking up new books. Maybe finding that balance point should be my real reading goal. Rather than Bookshelf Zero, my goal should just be to read a book or two more than I buy. 

I recently stumbled on a picture I took back in 2014 that is a good illustration of this idea. I laid out some books that I was going to prioritize for reading in 2015. I didn't get to all of them in 2015, but there was only 1 book in that picture that I have not read. The one book I haven't read, Parade's End, is the type of book that tends to sit on my shelves for a long time. Perhaps I should just stop buying books that I struggle to read and just buy things that I will get to quickly. It will slow my progress towards reading my backlist, but it will prevent too much new accumulation. I've bought 13 books and have read 12 owned books this year. Some of those 12 were definitely books that I bought this year, but that's not such a bad thing with this equilibrium point idea. If I just lower my equilibrium point by 5 books or so a year, I will gradually turnover my bookshelf. The real goal would be to lower the average time it takes me to get to a book. This will be a difficult number to determine at this point given that I don't have a purchase date for many of my books, but I know what is relatively new and what I've had for a while. Prioritizing the stuff I've had for a while should be the real goal. 

The book I'm currently reading, The Wapshot Chronicle, perfectly illustrates this approach. I bought this book back in June 2016. It's a Modern Library book, that's why I bought it from a used bookstore that quickly went out of business, that is not really something that I've been clamoring to read. It's a perfectly good book. I'm not bored while reading a few pages before I go to bed. It's actually a very pleasant reading experience. There are just other books that I would rather read. Some of those I already own, but a pretty good percentage of the 170 (for now) unread books that I own fall pretty neatly into the Wapshot Chronicles category. I looked through my unread books list and it's rife with books that I'm not exactly thrilled to pick up. They are usually really long or notoriously challenging reads. Both of these are features that attracted me to those books in the first place. It would be so fun to just get lost in some impossibly long book that people love (like The Count of Monte Cristo or Once and Eagle) or discover the magic of Proust or Tolstoy! At least that's what drives some of my buying decisions. Those future states are fun to think about, just like making reading plans for a fresh block of 12 months, but they are much more difficult to realize. 

Learning to deemphasize a sense of failure while highlighting the periods of discovery and beauty that come from reading wonderful books is an underappreciated aspect of Bookshelf Zero. The project is really just a reminder to take a look back every now and then and do a little book shopping from my own shelves. It's not a single-minded focus on getting through an arbitrary pile of books. It's a reminder that there are good things waiting if I make the effort. I can still buy books, as my recent purchase of 6 books from Thriftbooks so clearly attests, but there are plenty of new things to read just waiting on my shelves. 

This has been brewing...

This post has been brewing for a few weeks. This is not a capitulation, but it's not a re-engaging with the Bookshelf Zero project either. It's more of a reassessment of how I got here, where I am with this project, and what it all means. I'm not sure where to start, and, as I have been starting and never posting thoughts on YouTube vloggers, career prospects, and my general aspect on life, I will likely overthink this post and just give up on it before I get into the real issue.

I live a highly quantitated life. I track my running mileage and pace, reading, workouts, and intimate times with my wife. My entire life has had this element of the quantifiable. Grades, weight lifting maxes, 40 times, body weight, standardized test scores, number of publications, my entire graduate research program was just one big effort to measure a very obscure property of some obscure molecules. I was religious about keeping a list of video games that I beat when I was a kid. I was attracted to the Concept2 rowing machine because they supported an online logbook with rankings and challenges. It's no wonder I enjoy gambling. That's the ultimate in quantifiable living. Your value isn't measured in some abstract concept of the Good or a Soul. You're as good as the money you've won. Law school applications are the ultimate in quantified living. We are living in a quantified world and I am a quantified girl. 

Quantification has its place, but deeming personal worth by scores and measures is not that place. Bookshelf Zero sets another aspect of my life into the quantified framework. Do I read to read or do I read to realize another quantified goal? I never really judged my worth by my paycheck, but my worth is certainly wrapped up in how many books I've read, how much weight I can lift, and how many times I've had sex in a year. Earning more points doesn't mean I'm living a better life. More points just means I'm earning more arbitrary value on an activity that in many cases has no material impact on my life. Points have been an easy proxy for value derivation. The more points I'm earning, the better life I must be living or the better person I must be. 

I really don't know how to find value and meaning outside of the quantified realm. I know my best years have been those when all the things I quantify have gone well. I'm healthy (running well, lifting regularly), pursuing meaningful activities (reading good books), and my relationship is in a good place (plenty of sex). My ability to do those things well says that work is going well and my life is in a good, stable place. I'm getting the reassurance I need to feel confident and energized. I feel like I'm important and valuable. My best quantified years were the twenty teens. Plenty of highlights in these years. I got really into the whole experience points thing during this time. I was killing all my goals. Then my kids got older (I also got older) and the points thing wasn't working as well. My job changed, Covid hit, and it's been a struggle ever since. All the things I relied on to feel good about myself just kind of crumbled. I felt exposed and I've been struggling to figure out a way to recover from this exposure. 

I always turn to my points system for salvation when I need an ego boost, but that trick isn't working. My old tricks aren't doing the job any longer. Making progress on Bookshelf Zero doesn't feel like an accomplishment in the way it used to. I started this project when I realized I own books that I will likely never read in my lifetime. I buy books as an aspiration to some higher state. Not reading these books means I will not achieve that state. Bookshelf Zero was a way to ensure I achieved that state, but it became its own effort to achieve a higher state. So I still want to read the books, but I'm not sure Bookshelf Zero is the effort to get me there. I'm also not sure I can give it up. Where does that leave me? Good question.