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Reading Slothfully
I was told in elementary school that I only could read at half the speed for success in college. Oh well, one benefit of slow reading is you get to live with the characters a longer period of time. I read in a vain attempt to better understand people. At my other homes, I'm known as a spouse, pop, guy in the choir, physical chemist, computer/web dilettante and child-care provider. In theory, I'm a published author, if you consider stuff like Quenching Cross Sections for Electronic Energy Transfer Reactions Between Metastable Argon Atoms and Noble Gases and Small Molecules to count as publications. I've strewn dozens of such fascinating things to the winds.
Currently reading
Twenty Thousand Leagues Under the Seas
The Spirit of the Border
Ramona the Brave (Ramona, #3)
The Underground Man (Vintage Crime/Black Lizard)
Delilah of the Snows
Mrs. Miniver
Betsy-Tacy Treasury (P.S.)
A Christmas Carol
The Way Some People Die
Envy of Angels
Masterman Ready The Wreck of the "Pacific"
A hundred years ago, this was considered a children's classic. It tells the story of the Seagrave family who are ship wrecked on a south sea island along with a wizened old sailor, Masterman Ready. That sounds like it might be a gripping story, but it's not. It switches between didactic lessons regarding how the protagonists salvage their ship and set up housing for themselves and procure sources of food, along with pious discourses on how all is ordered by God's great, beneficial providence. It wasn't truly horrible, and I thought for time I might get through it. But then, I decided that my age, my remaining time on earth was too short to waste on such dated dreck.
I made it 40% of the way through the book, so technically it belongs on the "gave up" bookshelf. But I invested enough time into it and another book on which I "gave up", that I decided one should be counted for my reading for the year and one in the discard pile, where it belongs.
