finish reading all my half read books

Well, not really. I am not officially giving up, but there are always so many new books I want to read, that this goal is one of the hardest on my list! I am sloooooowly finishing things, but I have also started a few new ones since last I updated. Sigh.

Here’s my current progress….

Adrian Mole the Wilderness Years (Townsend)—reshelved (for now)
Angel of Darkness (Carr)—still reading
Birds of Passage (Sole)—reshelved (for now)
Call of Chthulu (Lovecraft)—still reading
Darwinia (Wilson)—abandoned
Dirt, the ecstatic skin of the earth (Logan)—still reading
Life of Pi (Martell)—reshelved (for now)
Magic Labyrinth (Farmer)—abandoned
Ocean Sea (Baricco)—reshelved (for now)
Time Traveller’s Wife ()—just started, because I am insane
Weaverworld (Barker)—reshelved (for now)

I feel better making the decision to reshelve or abandon some of the titles. Abandoned titles are those I’m not sure if I will ever start again; reshelved are those that I fully intend to read at some point.

Checking in on this goal and I really stink at it. This was my list of unfinished books when I started this goal:

Angel of Darkness (Carr)
Birds of Passage (Sole)
Darwinia (Wilson)
Dirt, the ecstatic skin of the earth (Logan)
Haunting of Hill House (Jackson)
Life of Pi (Martell)
Lord Valentine’s Castle (Silverberg)
Magic Labyrinth (Farmer)
Ocean Sea (Baricco)
Positively Final Appearance (Guiness)
Right Ho! Jeeves (Wodehouse)

I finished three (Right Ho! Jeeves; Lord Valentine’s Castle; and Haunting of Hill House), abandoned one (Positively Final Appearance) and started a few more; among them:

Haunted (Palahniuk)—now finished
Good Omens (Pratchett/Gaiman)
Adrian Mole the Wilderness Years (Townsend)
Call of Chthulu (Lovecraft)

I clearly have a problem. :)

I still have a dozen half-read books lingering around my house, so this goal is not reachable at this time. I’m not giving up though. Just… admitting that it’s going to take time.

I got sidetracked with some kidlit (that I didn’t even want to finish, it was that mediocre!) and now I am in the midst of Neil Gaiman’s American Gods... then I will get back to the books in progress, I promise!

Finally finished “Right Ho! Jeeves” and I’m glad I managed to finish it but I wouldn’t rush to read another in the Jeeves & Wooster series.

Finished Haunting of Hill House by Shirley Jackson. There were a couple of genuinely scary passages—descriptions of hauntings that had me wide-eyed. Overall though, fairly tame reading.

Finished Lord Valentine’s Castle. I was only about 40 or 50 pages from the end, and boy the ending was a disappointment. I had been looking forward to more in the series but I may reconsider that.

I have so many books “in progress”. Some are closer to finished than others. Right now for example I have bookmarks in 11 books (!!):
Angel of Darkness (Carr)
Birds of Passage (Sole)
Darwinia (Wilson)
Dirt, the ecstatic skin of the earth (Logan)
Haunting of Hill House (Jackson)
Life of Pi (Martell)
Lord Valentine’s Castle (Silverberg)
Magic Labyrinth (Farmer)
Ocean Sea (Baricco)
Positively Final Appearance (Guiness)
Right Ho! Jeeves (Wodehouse)

And there may be one or two more in my desk at work… This is why one shouldn’t work in a library.