So Many Books, So Little Time
While Infinite Jest continues to be the Moby Dick to my Ahab1, 2, I’ve decided that perhaps I needed to tackle some of the other books that have been piling up around my apartment. As I mentioned, a book I ordered from the library ages ago came in, plus Christmas brought a bunch of books for presents, a few people have loaned me books that they really liked3 and I still haven’t tackled the books I won in a contest from the Georgia Strait eons ago.
So my pile of books in need of reading looks like this:
The two books on the bottom of the pile are the textbooks from the course that I’m teaching, so I’ve been through most of those two. I.J., of course, I’m well into.
The one on the top of the pile (the cover of which you see just to the left of this paragraph) I just started reading yesterday, on the bus on the way to pick up my co-op car to go to my hockey game. For some reason, people on the bus seemed to be giving me strange looks.
The second book from the top is The Golden Compass, which several people recommended to me, including, coincidentally, a random on the bus (I was reading a Harry Potter book at that time, not a memoir of a submissive). I was on a looooong waiting list at the library for T.G.C., but then Kalev bought it for me for Christmas, so now I have my very own copy!
The next two books are to teach me how to use my new software on The Great Convexity (a.k.a., my computer at work); the one after that is a memoir on depression; then there’s my birthday present from Kalev, a book that I’ve been dying to read; then a textbook of my old roommate’s that’s supposed to be very interesting that I’ve borrowed from her a million years ago but never got around to reading, and then the five books I won.
Just looking at the pile, I’m kind of overwhelmed. Has anyone read any of these books? Any recommendations on what one I should read next?
1That’s not to say that I don’t like it. In fact, I’m loving it! It’s just taking me a waaaay long time to read as it’s (a) a very very long book and (b) a very dense read, so I have to be in a frame of mind where I can really concentrate to read it.
2In the interest of full disclosure, I should state that I have never read Moby Dick, only have a vague idea of what it’s about (Captain Ahab’s trying to kill a whale called Moby Dick, right?) and am making this literary allusion based solely on other literary allusions to it that I’ve seen in pop culture and people’s Facebook statuses.
3or had publishers send me books
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The Omnivore’s Dilemma was excellent, and Golden Compass was a great one, too. It’s been a few years since I read it, but it was memorable.
The God Delusion is amazing. I now have a MASSIVE crush on Dawkins.
[…] Products from the American Heartland.” 4Although not for a while, as I really need to read some of these other books first! 5In fact, the friend who recommended this book to me assumed I was a big DFW fan because I use so […]