Assigned Reading
January 28, 2008 at 10:36 pm 5 comments
What is it about having to read a book that makes me absolutely not want to read it? I had decided I would read Arabian Nights, followed by Arabian Nights and Days, and then finish up with The Last Voyage of Somebody the Sailor. This was my own decision. And yet, last night, I brought another book up to bed with me along with The Last Voyage just in case. And here I am poking around the Internet instead of reading.
A few years ago, tired of the looming, frightening peaks of my giant Mount TBR, I made myself a reading plan. I picked out a bunch of books I owned but hadn’t yet read, ordered them, gave myself slots for book-group reading and free choice, estimated the amount of time it would take me for each, and started on my way. (I had planned out about a year and a half of reading.) I think I read less in that year and a half than I had in the several years previous. I looked forward with longing to the free-choice slots. I even went off-roading for six books or so when I couldn’t take the structure anymore. I abandoned the plan at the end of 2006, and, rejoicing in the freedom, read more than ever before.
I avoid book-group books until the last minute. I start thinking more than a book or two ahead and I immediately start steering toward something else. It’s like college all over again–assign me a book, and I immediately don’t want to read it. I finally read North and South by Elizabeth Gaskell last year. It had been sitting on my shelf for over 20 years, a college assignment that I never could get around to. And guess what? I loved it. But in my own time.
Enough of this–I need to get back to John Barth. But I’m not looking forward to it.
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The Reading Nook 
1.
Zoesmom | January 29, 2008 at 2:18 pm
I am the same way and I have no explanation for it. I like that book club sometimes forces me to read something that I wouldn’t ordinarily, but at the same time I can feel so resistant to opening the book that I have to end up having a mini-marathon of reading before we meet.
2.
Jill | January 29, 2008 at 5:08 pm
Chris, I just tagged you for the Make My Day Award. Come check it out: http://mrstreme.livejournal.com/31843.html
=) Jill
3.
cabegley | January 29, 2008 at 7:13 pm
Zoesmom, I often give myself a drop-dead date by which I need to read the book-group book, otherwise I’m liable to leave it to the last minute and have to put in long, long hours. On the other hand, I used to read the group book far too early, for fear of being caught out late, and then I’d read six or seven others before we met and I couldn’t remember enough details to be a strong contributor to the discussion.
Jill–I can’t begin to tell you how much you made me smile! I told my husband about it, and he just gave me this patronizing look . . . but you really, really boosted my ego!
4.
musingsfromthesofa | January 29, 2008 at 8:47 pm
I am the same way. I have failed on what I said I would read for the Outmoded Authors challenge, because my enthusiasm for the last couple of books waned. And it waned simply because the books had been looming for so long. I don’t even own them. This is why I don’t stack up books more than a week or so in advance, because I will never get to them.
5. R.I.P., Somebody the Sailor « The Reading Nook | February 2, 2008 at 10:32 am
[…] since I’ve already logged the book in my spreadsheet, I’m committed to it. But after several days of book avoidance, some of my lovely, enabling friends convinced me to give up on John Barth’s The Last Voyage […]