Wednesday, December 31, 2014

Ya Blew It!

I've read a measly 42 books out of the targeted 45 for my yearly Goodreads challenge. I am an illterate bastard and should be executed.

If I fudged to include all the comic books I also read this year, surely I could say I technically read an equivalent word count; but that is the coward's way. I am a failure. I always knew.

But listen, the end of this year was nuts. I got a new job, got extremely ill with some flu-like malady, endured the usual Thanksgiving and Christmas chaos, and got MARRIED. So. I had some stuff going on. I'm not trying to excuse myself, but really. I HAD SOME STUFF GOING ON.

Still, 42 books feels extremely good-- even if a few of those were graphic novels. It was a good reading year. I have no regrets.

You know what screwed me up? Well, other than December's madness? "Love in the Time of Cholera." Slowed me waaaaaaaaaaaaaaaay down.

Anyway, now that this is a wrap, I've decided that while 2014 was the year of volume, 2015 will be the year of SIZE. The year of White Whales. The year of anvils, the year of Sisyphean drudgery, the year of carrying cinder blocks under each arm in the hot sun and quietly waiting for vultures to devour my entrails.

It begins with "Gravity's Rainbow." A book I purchased in 2001 or so, a book into which I have, so far, only ever managed to penetrate 20 pages or so during any given attempt before passing out from exhaustion. This year, the legacy of failure ends!

More to come.