I Have Too Much To Read….

     I have been a reader all my life.  One of my earliest memories is being in the town library wandering the shelves.  I don’t wander the shelves as much anymore thanks in part to our technology.  The computer certainly adds to my current problem.  But the problem grows by leaps and bounds in a variety of ways. 

    First there are my friends who are also readers.  We tend to share books.  Attend my monthly Scrabble group and its not unusual for someone to bring a book that they have finished, they recommend and they are willing to share.  The book gets passed around until everyone who has an interest has read it and then back to the owner it goes.

Then there are magazines, which create a double problem.  Number One problem, I have to find time to read them.  That in itself is a big challenge for me.  I have had, at times, stacks of magazines, etc. stacked 3 years high, waiting to be read.  Problem Number Two, within the magazines, when I do get around to reading them, are stories and articles with topics of interest that I need to read more about.  As an example, I am currently reading the Jan/Feb 2021 issue of Sierra, the journal for the national Sierra Club.  In this issue is an article entitled “Land Acknowledgement” and within that article is a story about Ishi, the person who was undoubtedly the last uncontacted indigenous person in North America.  His tribe, the Yahi Nation, was still resisting settler land grabs a generation after most Native nations in California had been imprisoned in Spanish missions or slaughtered by the forty-niners.  The article mentions two books written about Ishi.  How could I not read those?

Next are the bibliographies of books where their source books are listed.  Depending on the topic and my level of interest, quite often I have to read a couple of those books. 

And finally, of course, there are the libraries themselves.  They are dangerous places for me, places that I must enter with great caution.  It simply does not work for me to enter a library and leave with 3-4 books.  I never get the time allowed in which to read all 4 books.  Maybe if I lived alone in a cave somewhere this scenario would work.

 And what keeps me true and faithful to this obsession of mine?  Well of course, my ‘Goodreads’ book list.  If you do not know it, it is an app that suggests books to read, hooks you up with common Facebook friends to see what they are reading, manages your book list for you (so whenever I find a new book I want to read I add it to my list), has contests whose primary purpose is to encourage your reading, etc. etc.  I currently have 105 books on my “To Read” list on Goodreads.  Some have been on the list since before 2020.  I simply will not live long enough.

Add to all this I am still working on reading presidential biographies in chronological order.  This has been a fun project I’ve been working on for a few years.  I weave those books in and out of whatever my current read happens to be.  I am currently up to Wm. Howard Taft.  Have a ways to go on that project.

So, do you see what I mean??  I have a problem!!!!!  Too much to read, too little time!!!!