Sunday, April 19, 2015

Sunday Shorts

I'm heading to Minute Maid Park in a few minutes with my youngest grandson to watch the Astros take on the Angels (who used to be the California Angels but are now called something really cheesy like the "Angels of Anaheim").  But before we leave, there's time for a few more Sunday Shorts:


  • I spent another hour sorting a closet full of books yesterday afternoon and came away with 20 more hardcover books that I can release into the wild to make their own way in the world.  I'm sure the books will be thrilled to see the light of day...as thrilled as the folks at my office will be Monday morning to find the coffee break room filled with free books again. That brings me to almost exactly 100 hardcover books that I've moved out the door so far this year.  
  • I've kind of settled on the idea of listening to classic novels as I drive to and from work (although I'm going into FULL retirement on May 14, so time is running out quickly) because I never seem to get around to reading them anymore.  That backfired on me this week when, right in the middle of The Three Musketeers, I came across a disc so defective that it cannot be read by any CD player I own.  Well, that stopped me in my tracks.  I hesitate to try to finish up by reading the rest of the story because the new translator is likely to have a completely different style than that of the audio book version.  Epic Fail.
  • Coming into the year, I put together a list of unread books I own, some of which have been on my shelves for almost 30 years.  I prepared the list with high hopes to then make a real dent in it during 2015, a project that doesn't seem to be happening.  Just this week, I finally finished my first book from the list (The Joy Luck Club) and I've started another one (a thirteen-year-old Larry McMurtry book).  That's not nearly the pace I was hoping for, but it's a start.  Now I need to build on the tiny bit of momentum I've gained this week...lots of books to go.
  • And, I feel like I'm entering my first reading funk of the year.  I can always tell when it happens because my per-day page count drops right off the table - exactly as it has for the last four or five days now.  I've learned the hard way that the only thing likely to get me back on pace any time soon is to find that Magic Book, the one that gets me so excited that I can't put it down.  Let the search begin...wish me luck.

2 comments:

  1. What a bummer about the disc being bad on the audiobook! Did you borrow it from the library? Maybe you could get another copy? As for your project of reading the unreads, you may not be going as fast as you had hoped but at least you are doing it and that has to be worth something. Sorry to hear you are in a reading slump. I hate those. Hope it doesn't last long!

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  2. The audio book was an old library copy that I picked up in the neighborhood garage sale a while back...for all of $2, so there's no one I can complain to. But you've got me wondering if my library might have a copy of the same recording. I'll check.

    Thanks for the encouragement on reading from my shelves...Larry McMurtry's Sin Killer jumpstarted my reading again, and all four books from the series are on my shelves. That will help me in my quest to finally read some of the older books I have.

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