I had been planning to write a post this week about my mountain of half-read and unfinished books, after realizing that I only ever finish about two-thirds of the books that I pick up to read. I’m not sure if that reflects my indecisiveness or a staggering inability to commit, but it’s certainly not because they’re not good books.
And then yesterday, we lost electricity for the morning, and with nothing much to do except sit and enjoy the silence, I saw an opportunity before me. I sat down and I finished three books.
First, The Guernsey Literary and Potato Peel Pie Society, which I found thoroughly enjoyable and as a bonus, it has given me the desire to write long letters in the British dialect. I received the book as a Christmas gift and I had only just gotten around to picking it up, due in large part (I admit) to my expectation of something slightly…schmaltzy. Maybe it’s the name: anything with ‘Sisterhood’ or ‘Society’ in the title tends to have a Lifetime movie feel to it, but not this book. It’s just smart and funny and absolutely captivating.
Then I took a to an entirely different genre, and finally finished reading The Orthodox Way. I started reading it months ago, and somewhere in that time, I just put it down and forgot to pick it up again. It’s an excellent book, and I have a feeling that I’ll be reading it over and over and over again in the years to come.
As for the last book I read, well, I’m almost ashamed to admit how long I’ve been working on it. I will say that it was also a Christmas gift.
In 2007.
And I’m almost equally ashamed to admit just why it took me over a year to read Barbara’s Kingsolver’s perfectly wonderful book, Animal, Vegetable, Miracle. Because every time I did, I felt so darn convicted about the way we shop and the way we eat that I put the book down and wouldn’t touch it for weeks at a time. Some people lay out all their issues on romance novels and self-help books? I work out my issues through books on food.
But feelings of utter inadequacy aside, I did finish it, it was a great book, and I look forward to taking steps toward a better way of shopping and eating. Baby steps.
And now my unfinished book pile is down to just three, and my ‘great-books-to-recommend-to-everyone’ pile has grown some more. But that’s for another post…
I’ve got a rather large “half read” pile myself. I don’t know why i do it at all, sometimes they’re really good books but i can’t bring myself to pick it back up, because i’m not really in the mood for that type of narrative, you know.
My friend lent me a very awesome book a few months ago and i dropped it half way through in favor of re-reading the twilight saga for the fifth or sixth time. His book was just too much of a thinking book for my mood i guess.
He keeps harassing me about it, perhaps i should pick it up and finish it just to surprise him, LOL
Sam – I’m the same way, and I never have less than two or three books going at once (usually one fiction, one non-fiction, and one spiritual) because I’m never sure what kind of mood I’ll be in when I sit down to read.
Last week someone asked me what I thought of a book that’s been on my reading list for-e-ver. I didn’t tell them yet that I only got to Chapter Two…three months ago.