More about books: the curse of owning books

[avrelia]

I found a strange curse upon me – the curse of owning books. I have now small, yet reasonably cool library at home. Lovingly collected. Moved around across half of the world and several times through America. And a large part of it is yet unread. Not only it is unread, I have no idea when I get around to reading it.
There is always new books that I rush to read – free books from public libraries that I have to return in several weeks, so they always end up my priority reading. And when I finish them, another library book is waiting to be read immediately. I buy books occasionally – when I have some money to spend on them, I buy – to read at my leisure, to boost sales for the author, to own something I love. And that fabled leisure time never comes. The books remain unread. Or unfinished.
A year ago I cruelly culled my books, giving away to the local library and friends about one third of what I had. Now I shall have to do some culling again. I have no idea how to go about it. I need to read faster I guess.

There are too many delicious books to read and reread...

io9.com published their best sff list for the year 2010. I read one book from the list (The Windup Girl), and there are two that are in my giant to-read pile: NK Jemisin, The Broken Kingdoms and Cherie Priest, Dreadnought. Charles Yu, How To Live Safely In A Science Fictional Universe looks very interesting, I may check it out.
Damn. Where is the time to read all the books I want?!

Comments

[gobi-rex.livejournal.com]

I got Charles Yu's book from the library, but couldn't finish it. I think I wasn't in the mood for it - I normally like this sort of story. I just didn't have the mental energy to get involved with the story and structure and the level of attention it required. But that was a problem on my side, not on the book's.

Thanks for the rec list!

Hee, the familiar curse of too many books ;-) I must admit I'm warming up to the idea of an electronic reader sometime in the future - for space saving purposes. I adore having actual physical books, but it's becoming kind of a luxury nowadays, with prospects of moving and etc.

[avrelia.livejournal.com]

I can see how it could be a mood thing. I couldn't finish a lot of good books - this year and before. something didn't click and I didn't have the energy to go ahead. Somehow lots of good books are not very exciting in the beginning, no matter what all writing books say. I suffered through Windup girl, I was bored the first third of Boneshaker, but I finished them, and I am glad. I didn't finish Palimpsest by Katerine Valente, even though it had moments of awesomeness.

I am getting by with my iPod touch for my ebook reading needs. But it is the same - I downloaded a huge library of free books(mostly from guttenberg.org) and I don't read it.

The dedicated reader - I will be ready for it some day, but I would hate to get read of books I do have. Most of them bought on library sales or used bookstores and not really available as e books.

my latest read was Jack London's Smoke Bellew. I was surprised that while it is hugely popular in Russia - and I read it as a child, it's virtually unknown here. when we came to Canada, and bought a huge map, I realized that Klondike gold rush happened in Canada, not US, as I always thought. Such a shock! and now I was reading it, looking for signs of Canadianness :) But it was good.

[soundingsea.livejournal.com]

I know what you mean... I have far too many books and too little time. (I'm still going to check out that io9 link, though!)

[avrelia.livejournal.com]

On the other hand, I read several books a day, every day, several times over. I am past the point where D would ask me to read Dr. Seuss' ABC five times in a row - which is really exhausting - but it is still a lot of the same every day. :^)

I cannot relax with a book anymore. I read in short stretches, on the go, on the run, on the subway...