Read 50 books in 2007

I gave up on The Golden Bowl after 100 pages. I don’t often give up on a book in the middle, but the pace was maddeningly slow, even for Henry James, and I couldn’t take it anymore.

I finished Joan Didion’s Slouching Towards Bethlehem and The White Album, both wonderful.

Now I’m reading an intro to philosophy textbook, since I somehow got through college and grad school without taking a philosophy course. It’s already blowing my mind. I just read the first section, on the meaning of life or lack thereof. Most of the selections hold the view that life is generally meaningless.

I tend to agree, but I think it can be quite liberating to view life as absurd—if it truly is absurd, there’s no reason to worry about anything, and you can focus on doing things that are truly worthwhile, like easing the suffering of others, for instance, and being creative, which one of the authors suggested was the only true way to live a life of any meaning. I feel stuck in regard to the former, since I live in the suburbs, work at home and am not currently doing any volunteer work, so I’m not doing much to help my fellow humans or other living creatures right now. But I’m thinking a lot about what will be the best way for me to change that.

I’m looking forward to the next section of the book, on the existence of God. Should be interesting.

I’m rocking out on this one. I’m averaging about a book a week, but I’d like to get it up to two a week if I can. Probably when work slows down in a couple of weeks I’ll be able to do that.

My basic goal right now is to read books that I’ve always wanted to read but never got around to. (It’s kind of scary, even with bachelor’s and master’s degrees in English, how many books I haven’t read.)

Read so far this year:
Dubliners—James Joyce
Portrait of the Artist as a Young Man—James Joyce
Brave New World—Aldous Huxley
Daisy Miller—Henry James
Turn of the Screw—Henry James
Portrait of a Lady—Henry James
The Golden Bowl—Henry James (reading now)

Next up: I’ve got collected short stories from Katherine Anne Porter and Katherine Mansfield, Truman Capote’s In Cold Blood, and Joan Didion’s collected nonfiction.