Thoughts From The Edge

I’m a fickle reader. I’ll spend months thumbing through books followed by months of ignoring them. My bedside table is stacked piled high with barely-opened, almost-finished, partway-through, and maybe-gonna-start-this-tonight selections.  The issue is my attention span: If it doesn’t grab me in the first sitting then I’m not likely to finish it.  Another problem is my selection process. Other than recommendations from friends, my usual strategy is to head to the Reading Group section of my local library and find something there. I’ve had good luck with those books- They’re interesting enough to be discussed at length (hence their placement in the book group section, and they’re also allowed to be checked out for a longer period of time, which works with my sometimes slow reading pace.

Upon my last trip to the library, however, I realized I had exhausted most of my options. Which feels pretty awesome to stare at a wall full of books that I’ve already read. (That’s me, patting myself on the back and pushing up my glasses in a most pretentious way.)

Now, while I’m up to date with most best-sellers of the past decade or so, I’m lacking in my knowledge of the “classics”. It’s most apparent while playing Trivial Pursuit and losing all the literature questions, not to mention Jeopardy. I never really gave much of a though to reading the classic literature, mainly because they were forced upon me in high school English classes and since then I’ve maintained a rebellious state towards them. But that was then and I’m a full-fledged adult now (I have life insurance!) and might appreciate them more.

A quick Google search brought me to a nice list of Books that everyone should read at least once from Goodreads. Number one on the list is To Kill a Mockingbird, and I’m already halfway through and intending to finish tonight. Maybe I’ll even finagle my book club in to reading along with me! So, that’s one of my goals for 2012: Read more classics to feel less stupid.