I’m not quite sure the source of the trend, but I have started and then put down more books in the two weeks of this year than I did all of last year. And to top it off, of the two books I have read, one of them took me far longer than it normally would.
What makes it more disheartening is the books I’m putting down aren’t “bad” books by any stretch of the imagination. They range from books by two Nobel Prize winning authors to standard non-fiction. It isn’t that they are poorly written or not worth the time. In fact, I would venture that 95 percent of the time or more, I would have read each one through to conclusion. It seems they aren’t striking whatever mood the reading part of my brain is in, I have no idea what that part of me craves or both.
Those that weren’t library books are going back in the bookshelf by the bed that contains what is arguably the “TBR” books. I just hope my inability to find what I want to read doesn’t taint them for the future. Fortunately, a book I started an evening or two ago has kept me intrigued and I’m starting another tonight for a review. (And to reassure those who know me personally, no, the SuperOptimist book under “Now Reading” is not a self-help work; it’s a parody.)
I just hope one of them strikes that intangible chord, the funk disappears and the reading life returns to normal.
Books are like imprisoned souls until some one takes them down from a shelf and reads them.
Samuel Butler, The Note-Books of Samuel Butler
