Read all the books I've bought but haven't read yet.

a gift from the sea

I enjoy reading.

Or, at least, I thought I did until I went to put the 4 new books I bought last week on my bookshelf. I started looking through my maybe 200 books and I thought to myself, Huh. I haven’t even read half of these.

I enjoy the idea of reading. Ooh, I enjoy it soooo much. I enjoy starting a book and never finishing it. I could tell you how the first thirty pages go of all 200 books I own.

I could tell you how maybe seventy of them end.

So, meticulously I will make my way through these books. Eventually, I will finish them. Finally, I will allow myself to buy 200 more and finish them all as well.

This is a fun read, as it’s missing chunks of text on the first few pages since a previous foster dog ate on it (three-legged Lily, hit by a car and I got to change her bandages twice daily through the stench of decay but now she lives with fabulously wonderful Jim and Kumar and has found permanent love and joy and deer to chase).
Sadly, since it’s in horrid shape, I can only throw it away once I’ve done reading it. No chance to sell it on ebay unless there’s a shortage of “dog-eaten books” out there.

There’s this one bookstore near campus, and EVERY time I go in I have to buy a book. The selection is just too good!

Last night I bought a book 80% off called “Going With the Grain” that follows how bread is made in Morocco. Why do I have such weird taste? I blame reading The Omnivore’s Dilemma!

I’ve listed three books that I’ve read on half.com (and if they don’t sell in a week, they’re going to the free shelf at cafe caffeine). Listed to sell: The Light Ages, Silverlock, and Sextopia. To read: The Wellness Book (gift for husband), Politics of Women’s Biology (left by roommate), and In Memoriam to Identity (bought at the local anarchist bookstore, but it’s Kathy Acker and she’s not exactly airport literature).

As much as I love the cheap insulation that books offer (if they’re cheap books – mine aren’t) when bookshelves line the walls, after we downsized into a house that’s an office, a bedroom, and a bathroom smaller, there’s no room for our collection of books from our childhood, gift books, and all those books I bought to help research my thesis (why?). Once they’re read, they’ll either go into the Keep, Half.com, or recycle pile. Who needs College-level calculus that hasn’t been opened in … oh, fifteen years?