My book reading schedule has been really strange as of late. There have been a lot of books that I have wanted to read, but I find myself picking up other books and reading them. Part of it is due to schedule. Part of it is due to mood.
For a while I had “Dune” by Frank Herbert on the brain. After re-reading “Fahrenheit 451″ by Ray Bradbury, I felt it was time to re-read another classic sci-fi novel. But I just haven’t gotten around to it. More recently I received an Advanced Reader Copy of “Anathem” by Neal Stephenson. The book won’t be released to the public until the second week of September. I have no obligation to actually read it and review it, but wanted to do my part. I just don’t think I will get around to it though. This past weekend I started reading it, and only 20 pages in half my brain started to melt. Stephenson is hard sci-fi, mostly math. And it’s been so long since I read similiar sci-fi. I don’t think my brain is ready for it. Also, Marcia and I have essentially canceled our vacation for this summer. I figured that I could knock off (possibly) half the book in the week we would be gone. (I read over 500 pages of two books last year.) But without that, I would be fooling myself that I could finish the 972 page book before it’s release date. So if anything, I got a free copy of what will probably be an excellent sci-fi novel.
There also have been some straying with reading for mini book clubs. The most recent I just POSTED about. Though David and I widdled down choices for our next one, we just never got together to do the coin toss and both ended up reading our picks of the final two. (Mine was “The Brief Wondrous Life of Oscar Wao” by Junot Diaz.) I am sure that we will get back together and do another soon.
Also now, I have signed up for a reading challenge. There is a book titled “Yellowknife” by Steve Zipp that was reviewed in the Bookworm Carnival that I HOSTED. I kept seeing good reviews for it, but couldn’t find it. Finally the last review I read, on author Corey Redekop’s blog, stated that it’s an independent small press release from Canada. I contacted the author and he gave me some options to help me find it, but the last option is that he would actually give me a free copy if I joined “The 2nd Canadian Book Challenge, Eh?” hosted by John Mutford (who also reviewed a book in the same Carnival). After looking over a list of authors, I didn’t realize how many books I already have by Canadian authors. Plus there are a couple that I have had my eye on already. The idea is to read 13 of them over the course of a year, starting July 1st. So for the next year half the books I read would have to fit the category. But again, having to read something by Guy Gavriel Kay, and “The Handmaid’s Tale” by Margaret Atwood, and anything by W. P. Kinsella, to name a few, is not very “challenging” to me.
So as it stands right now I have many options open to me, but will be pushing back a few books for much later. There is only one for sure thing to read though, and that is my next book “Southpaw” by Mark Harris. I finally got a copy of this book recently, and have wanted to read it now for a few years. Plus I can’t let the summer go by without reading at least one book of baseball fiction.
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