Slow The World Down!
Mar. 26th, 2005 11:08 am![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
ladyspriteHow the hell am I ever supposed to read everything I want to when people keep writing new amazing and fascinating and intriguing books faster than I can catch up, and old ones that I've already read keep drawing me back with their seductive yet comfortingly familiar words?
It's just not fair - every time I read a book, it reminds me of another one that I need to reread, or points me into a genre that I need to explore, or makes me want to go out and hunt down everything that author has ever written, which then leads me off on another tangent until I wind up standing in front of my to-read pile whimpering in a frozen frenzy of indecision.
The local library doesn't help, either. I wander in there full of resolve that this time I'm just going to return the books I took out last week and renew my book-on-tape, but of course in order to do that I have to walk past a display that has, among other things, a paperback copy of 'Flowers for Algernon.' Which a friend of mine just mentioned reading recently, reminding me that I haven't read it in years and need to reread it RIGHT NOW.
Of course, once I've paused, I might as well poke around the stacks for just a minute, which of course traps me in their bait-and-switch plot. No, they don't have the new Jacqueline Carey book on the shelves (because, having finished the last of the Kushiel's Dart series, I must consume her new novel as soon as humanly possible), but while you're waiting, come look at this new shiny short story collection with half a dozen of your favorite authors. And the new Year's Best Fantasy and Horror. And a cookbook of baked goods sorted by flavor. And an entire new section of graphic novels.
Then, back at home with my armload of books, I'm suddenly confronted with the stack next to my desk of books I had planned on reading next - Andre Norton that I haven't read yet, because she's on my mind, a Charles DeLint novel in my collection that I somehow had missed, 'Dead Witch Walking' that I bought around the holidays and just haven't dug down to yet, 'Gone With the Wind' because, well, it's been at least a year since I've read it.
I need to stay unemployed, and just spend the rest of my life curled up on the sofa with a bottomless mug of tea and my books. There's no other possible solution.
It's just not fair - every time I read a book, it reminds me of another one that I need to reread, or points me into a genre that I need to explore, or makes me want to go out and hunt down everything that author has ever written, which then leads me off on another tangent until I wind up standing in front of my to-read pile whimpering in a frozen frenzy of indecision.
The local library doesn't help, either. I wander in there full of resolve that this time I'm just going to return the books I took out last week and renew my book-on-tape, but of course in order to do that I have to walk past a display that has, among other things, a paperback copy of 'Flowers for Algernon.' Which a friend of mine just mentioned reading recently, reminding me that I haven't read it in years and need to reread it RIGHT NOW.
Of course, once I've paused, I might as well poke around the stacks for just a minute, which of course traps me in their bait-and-switch plot. No, they don't have the new Jacqueline Carey book on the shelves (because, having finished the last of the Kushiel's Dart series, I must consume her new novel as soon as humanly possible), but while you're waiting, come look at this new shiny short story collection with half a dozen of your favorite authors. And the new Year's Best Fantasy and Horror. And a cookbook of baked goods sorted by flavor. And an entire new section of graphic novels.
Then, back at home with my armload of books, I'm suddenly confronted with the stack next to my desk of books I had planned on reading next - Andre Norton that I haven't read yet, because she's on my mind, a Charles DeLint novel in my collection that I somehow had missed, 'Dead Witch Walking' that I bought around the holidays and just haven't dug down to yet, 'Gone With the Wind' because, well, it's been at least a year since I've read it.
I need to stay unemployed, and just spend the rest of my life curled up on the sofa with a bottomless mug of tea and my books. There's no other possible solution.
no subject
Date: 2005-03-26 06:43 pm (UTC)Hello, what? Excuse me, I need to buy a book....
no subject
Date: 2005-03-26 09:23 pm (UTC)