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.