Well, it is done. We are back from all our holiday travels and I have finished my 100 books. Yes, that's right, at the same time that I was experiencing all the Christmas hullabaloo, I was busily reading the last 10 books. This afternoon, on our way home from Escondido, I sat in the passenger seat reading away, while Rocket Boy drove. Normally I always want to be the driver (when we're in my car), but desperate times call for desperate measures.
Now that it is all over, what have I accomplished, really? What have I learned?
I have learned that I do not want to do this again. I don't have to have a goal like this to read a lot -- I love to read. Instead, this goal often prevented me from reading what I wanted to read -- I felt bad about reading magazines, or short stories, or dipping into books to read a bit of this, a bit of that, because it wouldn't add to my list. I also, to some extent, chose shorter, easier books. In 2011 I look forward to reading many really long, dull books!
This experience has also been a warning to me not to set other goals that would turn a pleasurable experience into a chore. I will soon be getting to work on my resolutions for the coming year, and I must keep that thought in mind.
But, on the other hand, it is very satisfying to set oneself a difficult goal and then achieve it. (That is especially true for me now, when the rest of my life consists of such mundane work as changing diapers and cooking dinner.) When I was sitting here this evening, frantically reading the last section of book number 100, I was reminded of what it was like to finish my dissertation. Don't get me wrong, finishing my dissertation was a LOT harder than reading 100 books in a year. But there was that same frantic feeling that I HAD to get it done, pointless though it might be. Rocket Boy said to me, tonight, "Why don't you just finish that book tomorrow?" I almost hit him over the head with it, while at the same time acknowledging that no one but me cared about what I was doing. But it was important to me. And I did it.
Edited to add: one other positive thing about this experience was that I could defend my endless reading by saying "I have to stay on schedule! I have to read one more book this month!" etc., etc. I realized this morning (Jan. 1st), as I started reading a new book, that I no longer have that excuse and will have to think of some other way to justify my favorite hobby.
Here is the final list:
91. The Ballad of Beta-2 by Samuel R. Delany. A short book, more of a novella than a novel. I decided to read more of Delany, even though I am not a scifi/fantasy buff, because he does such neat tricks with linguistics, as in this book, which I found at our local used bookstore. A nice little story.
92. The Land of Little Rain by Mary Austin. A group of essays written about the Owens Valley and nearby areas, including ours, in the early part of the 20th century. Her prose style is hard to get through, but the book was worth reading. I should probably buy a copy for our collection.
93. The Einstein Intersection by Samuel R. Delany. Another short novel, not as interesting to me as the other one.
94. The Best Revenge by Stephen White. Another enjoyable White mystery, set in Boulder and elsewhere in Colorado.
95. Shattered by Dick Francis. I'd never read a Dick Francis novel before, but picked this up at a rummage sale to see what he's like. Awful! But to be fair, this was one of his last books, if not the last, and supposedly his earlier books were better. I'm not going to worry about them, though.
96. The Soldier's Art by Anthony Powell. Book 8 in the series, I liked this one very much. I can understand why these aren't much read anymore -- they're so hard to follow, and so closely tied to the times they were written about. But I love them. Finding this series might be my favorite thing about this reading year.
97. Beyond Belief: The Secret Gospel of Thomas by Elaine Pagels. I found this book at the Salvation Army thrift store -- a nice hardback copy for 50 cents. It just called to me, so I bought it and read it immediately. Such an interesting book about the history of early Christianity, so thought-provoking.
98. Bad Things Happen by Harry Dolan. I liked this post-modern mystery set in Ann Arbor, but I wanted it to be better! I know I haven't lived there in 13 years, but I still thought the local color would mean more to me. Instead, he focused on the story. Oh well.
99. Too Much Happiness by Alice Munro. I like Munro's short stories a lot, but there wasn't one in this collection that really grabbed me. Maybe it's because I had read about half of them before, in the New Yorker, but actually the one that grabbed me the hardest, "Deep-Holes," was one I'd read already, so that isn't it. I feel as though she's repeating herself. I also was disappointed in the title story, a longer piece about a (real) 19th century woman mathematician, which seemed to me to be too much about her romantic feelings and not enough about math. But that's just me, always wanting there to be more math.
100. The Military Philosophers by Anthony Powell. Book 9 in the series, and what better place to end the year. I enjoyed this one, but it was read under such difficult circumstances (from 3 to 5 am in the hotel bathroom, in the car as previously noted), that I don't think I fully appreciated it. No matter -- I have decided I'm going to collect the whole series, and then I can re-read them at my leisure.
And there we are. What will I read next? Anything I want. It is about 10:30 pm and I need to go do a few things to prepare for 2011. Happy New Year, everyone!
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