The record is not good!

At this time last year, I had read a grand total of 42 books. This year you can see the number is a paltry 26. I've only read 26 books!!! I'd like to say it's because this year I've been reading some deep and serious things and last year I read all cotton candy for my brain but that's not true.

I know that last year at this time I was just substitute teaching so I could read basically all day and this year I'm in classes with kids and "working" each period... I'm sure that has a lot to do with it. It must. I have to believe that.

And since I've moved back to the Midwest, and I'm home with friends and family, AND I'm back in Civilization, I'm out doing more now than I was then. I hadn't been home long this time last year and was still getting my bearings. I also am doing other things than just reading: sewing, spending time with friends and family, blogging, emailing, and school related teacher stuff.

But still- 26 compared to 42? I feel like I'm lacking. What a bum I've become. Shame on me!

But I look at my Goodreads list and see all the things I want to read and I look at the calendar and see only 21 more school days until summer vacation, so things are bound to balance out, right?

(And if anyone is part of Goodreads and wants to be on my friend list, send me a comment here and we can do that!)

Come on summertime!

Too Many Books?

I have a pile of books and nothing is appealing. What's up with that?

Actually, I might know what's up with that. These are all books I've wanted to read but they weren't available when I WANTED to read them, so not having the money to buy them, I put them on reserve at the library. Now the books are starting to arrive and... I think I'm out of the mood. I can't decide if I should just hang on to them until they're due back and see if the mood strikes me to read them, or if I should just return them and add them back to my "to read" list and see if I can get through them another day.

I wish I could just afford to buy them as I want to read them rather than put them on reserve and then wait, the mood passes but now I feel obligated. Drat!

I have 2 books home about Sally Hemmings, the woman who was supposed to be the love of Thomas Jefferson's live. Oh, but she was his black slave... one is fictional and it reads like some little old lady who thought Gone was the Wind was the ideal model to follow when writing a book but she wrote it back in the 70's when she wanted to clamp down on the sexual revolution and tell women is was okay to be enslaved. The other one is a biography of Jefferson, focusing on his relationship with Hemmings and it's... cumbersome to say the least. I became interested in Hemmings because a few weeks ago, my 8th graders in social studies were learning about the Jefferson era.

I also have home a fictional novel about vanGogh as told by his favorite prostitute call Sunflowers. I just can't get into it right now. This is the second time I've had it home from the library and I was loving it the first time but I didn't get it finished and there was a looooooong waiting list so I returned it. And am now struggling. (But I do so love fictional novels based in reality, like Teddy Roosevelt and his lover Lucy Mercer, depicted in the novel Lucy! Excellent book!)

I have Chris Moore's brand new book, Bite Me. He is one of my favorite all time authors. ALL TIME! And I am struggling. Now it could be because it's the third in the Tommy Flood loves Jody and gets turned into a vampire so they can be together for all eternity but things go terribly wrong series, and they are my least favorite books. His last book FOOL was one of the best books I've ever read in my life and now my least favorite characters are his follow up so that could be the issue. And he writes in teen girl speak quite a bit- I'm on spring break and didn't have to hear teen girl speak for a week but now I'm reading it so.... I'm just bummed that I'm not enjoying it as much as I thought I would, and I was so excited to get it over spring break...

I have Of Mist and Bees, what the blurb describes as a modern day ghost story, Love in the Time of Chlora, which I need to read before the end of the month for book club about a man who is madly in love with a woman but manages to have 622 affairs since he can't have her, something about Mr Oade's Women... and several others I can't seem to remember, which certainly doesn't bode well for me even reading them.

To top it off, I have a book home I REALLY want to read, The Man Who Loved Books Too Much but I have to get through Bite Me and Cholra first. And I've been struggling along with Pride and Prejudice and Zombies for a month. I LIKE "Zombies" but I've been trying to only read it at school for our required daily reading time, which is only 15 minutes. I think I need to sit down and just chomp through this to get it done- yes, the pun was intended. I think it merits more than 15 minutes at a time to read; it needs more.

Maybe I just have too many books home right now. I think today I'm going to weed the stack down and return a bunch to the library. I used to always keep a huge amount of books on hand so if I didn't like something I would have something else on hand. But that's when I was averaging about 10 books a month. I'm not anywhere near that number this year so maybe I don't need to keep 15 books at home all the time... maybe I could keep 7.

I always have a back up pile of books I own but haven't gotten around to reading yet so I could lean on those if I read through my library books.

I have no idea. I'm just doing other things than reading these days and my head is full of distractions, work, finding new work, quilting, writing, sewing, film....

The time I spend writing this I could've been reading...

Maggie