2011 Reading Review

I claimed early in the year that I was taking a break from the competitive reading and photography that was part of 2010.  Instead, I was going slow.  I didn’t even keep up with posting an already taken picture every day.  The year just got away from me somehow and buying a house and moving ate up time and energy even when you weren’t aware of it.  Frankly, we’ve been working like heck since March!  There’s a lot to show for it but every so often, we just get tired.  That’s me tonight.  It is getting dark, Bob is tending a brush fire, and I am ready to curl up with a book although I know it means I will be asleep in about 15 minutes.

I finally managed to find time to update my LibraryThing reading list for the year, and I was a little disappointed to discover that I’ve only read 19 books in 2011, well 20 if you count the Arthur Conan Doyle romance I was reading as the year began.  I might get to 40 at this rate.  I haven’t bought that many books this year either–with the exception of the binge at The Book Escape in Baltimore in April and that was therapy book buying because I had a terrible headache and the minute he handed me the bags, it went away, really, true story–but I need to make a bigger dent in the books I own.  Three of the books I’ve read came from that binge.

I remember being too restless to read in the spring, picking up and putting down books.  I never finished Mailer’s Oswald, it was intimate and sad and yet almost too much so.  I found myself wanting to just get on with it, put off sometimes by the minutiae. (Hmmm, that is my complaint about McPherson right now…maybe I am beginning to demand more economy from authors as I realize I probably won’t ever finish reading the books I currently own plus there’s a pretty good chance I’m going to buy a few more in the next couple decades). I abandoned Mailer for the Benjamin Franklin biography which seemed to move along nicely, sensible yet rich, using details to enhance rather than pummel, something like the man himself.  After that the pace picked up, and I am trying to find time to read every day.

Plus, I hope I get credit for reading thoughtful, lengthy volumes like McPherson’s single-volume Civil War history that I am working on right now.   My list for this year only has a couple guilty pleasures like Georgia Bottoms, about a woman surviving in a small town.  A wickedly funny, just almost unbelievable story. I loaned it to my mother who declared it dirty and then promptly lent it to all her friends.  I don’t count the Anne Perry mystery as fluff since its characters include real English royalty and her work can almost be considered historical fiction.

I did add a book to my library this week: a history of the Battle of Chickamauga by Glenn Tucker that was displayed at the local junk store across the highway from the farm.  I stop in now and then to see what they’ve got.  Besides the book, I found an oversized mug and saucer by Staffordshire with The Farmers Arms poem printed on both cup and saucer.  It seemed appropriate.  And it may even be worth more than I paid…Antiques Roadshow here I come! They gave me the $3 box for free. Good thing since it turned out that the hinge was broken.  But I like the place: a nice jumble of old and not so new, kind of organized but also not so much with the stuff that doesn’t sell getting pushed to the back as they fill up the front and spill over into the parking lot in front.

And now it’s back to McPherson…we’ve made it past Fort Sumter but not to Manassas….it’s going to be a long war.

 

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