Reading for Me

Greetings from eastern Arkansas! I hope you have all had a relaxing Thanksgiving holiday, surrounded by those you hold most dear. I traveled to my parents’ home on Tuesday evening and decided to take a complete vacation, focusing only on things that needed my attention here. As a result, I have read nothing since leaving the airport. That doesn’t bode well for meeting my reading goals for the remainder of the year, but it certainly has led to a healthier mind and spirit for this reader. That is worth far more to me than the arbitrary reading goal I set for myself.

When I begin heading back to Texas tomorrow afternoon, I will resume the adventures of the Kincaid brides and see what more I can discover about Disraeli through his biography. Tomorrow, I will begin the process of returning to my responsibilities and my normal pursuit of an academic life. For now, I am going to continue enjoying rest and respite. I’ll update you next weekend about my continuing progress through the world of books.

My reading chair is surrounded by a multitude of books. Everything is in progress and nothing is getting marked off of my list. I’m not necessarily a fan of this method of reading, but it is the only way I am getting things accomplished at the moment.

What is causing such disarray in my reading life? Academia and pleasure reading are merging and I am just trying to keep my head above water. I’m nearing the end of my current novel, The Accidental Tourist, and should have that completed before I need to return it to the library on Monday. I thought I would finish it earlier this week, but my music appreciation lectures demanded that I do some reading on Puccini, Verdi, and Wagner to get through the week’s lectures. Additionally, I’m continuing to make my way through Schonberg’s The Great Pianists, but haven’t been able to devote any time to its pages this week.

On Thursday, I learned that I have been admitted to the Master’s program in Humanities at Wayland. I’ve been considering pursuing another graduate degree for a while and this one seems like a good fit. Then I registered for Spring classes! The first 8-week course is British History; the syllabus includes four book reviews (one every other week of the term). The books on the list are MASSIVE, so I made my way to the library on Friday morning and picked up the first tome that I’m going to read. It’s long and requires a lot of brain energy to read. It’s been a little while since I had to read academically, so I’m hoping that my brain cells are still up to the task. So, I’m slowly making my way through A Mad, Bad, and Dangerous People? England 1783-1846 by Boyd Hilton at the moment. So for a little while, it seems that the purpose of starting this blog — reading solely for personal enjoyment — is going to be encroached by a bit of academic work as well. We’ll see how things progress!