50 Book Challenge
I have joined the community 50bookchallenge and am going to try and track my reading this year and see if I can read, or surpass maybe, 50 books in 2005.
Time was when I probably read a lot more than that in a year, but working at home changes things -- travel time used to be my major reading time, especially during the 10 years I spent at York University, which for those of you not in Toronto is located on the very northern edge of the city, and a fair bit west of centre, meaning a ve-e-e-ery long commute for anyone who lives anywhere near downtown. Depending on where I was living at the time, it was usually anywhere from an hour to an hour and a half. Maybe 45 minutes with really good connections. So you get in the habit of having a book or two on you at all times and reading on the streetcar, the subway, the express bus.
Even a few years ago, I probably read somewhat more than now. When I was living alone, I could sitll get sucked into a book and spend hours reading, intending only a 15 minute break from work and ending up spending longer, or spending an evening reading when done with work. But when ladyjane and I moved in together, time spent not working began to be spent with her. It seemed disrespectful to me to spend time in my own little world of words on paper when I had a live human being there who I should be spending time with instead.
So: as much of a book geek as I may be by nature, self-employment and married life have conspired to diminish my reading. Then there's the bad habit I have, and have pretty much always had, of reading several books at once and sometimes not finishing them because I get distracted (hello, ADD). So I'm hoping taking this little challenge will get me reading more, and finishing more of the books I start so that I can add them to my list.
Currently, I am reading Paul Davies' God and the New Physics and Franz Bardon's Initiation into Hermetics, so I suppose those can be one and two on my list, depending on the order in which I finish them. There are probably about a dozen other books that I started in the last year but didn't finish, so maybe I'll pick up a few of those again and actually finish them this time. We'll see.
Time was when I probably read a lot more than that in a year, but working at home changes things -- travel time used to be my major reading time, especially during the 10 years I spent at York University, which for those of you not in Toronto is located on the very northern edge of the city, and a fair bit west of centre, meaning a ve-e-e-ery long commute for anyone who lives anywhere near downtown. Depending on where I was living at the time, it was usually anywhere from an hour to an hour and a half. Maybe 45 minutes with really good connections. So you get in the habit of having a book or two on you at all times and reading on the streetcar, the subway, the express bus.
Even a few years ago, I probably read somewhat more than now. When I was living alone, I could sitll get sucked into a book and spend hours reading, intending only a 15 minute break from work and ending up spending longer, or spending an evening reading when done with work. But when ladyjane and I moved in together, time spent not working began to be spent with her. It seemed disrespectful to me to spend time in my own little world of words on paper when I had a live human being there who I should be spending time with instead.
So: as much of a book geek as I may be by nature, self-employment and married life have conspired to diminish my reading. Then there's the bad habit I have, and have pretty much always had, of reading several books at once and sometimes not finishing them because I get distracted (hello, ADD). So I'm hoping taking this little challenge will get me reading more, and finishing more of the books I start so that I can add them to my list.
Currently, I am reading Paul Davies' God and the New Physics and Franz Bardon's Initiation into Hermetics, so I suppose those can be one and two on my list, depending on the order in which I finish them. There are probably about a dozen other books that I started in the last year but didn't finish, so maybe I'll pick up a few of those again and actually finish them this time. We'll see.