Reading Resolution: Update

Some of the neglected books I'll be reading this year

A quarter of the way into 2011 and I’m pleased to say I’ve kept my resolution not to buy any new books until I’ve read all of the books I currently own. It hasn’t been easy. Temptation reared its head recently when I was handed a Smith’s gift card and told to spend it (it went on magazines in the end) and then there was the moment when I saw a beautiful hard copy of Angela Carter's‘Wayward Girls and Wicked Women’ when a mischievous little voice in my head said, “Buy it! No one will know...” .  Still, I’ve resisted so far and have been making my way through my bookshelves.

So far, it’s been pretty painless: I’ve had my pick of unopened books with a greater potential to delight than those I’ve previously started and cast aside for various reasons.  I’ll have to change that soon enough though and delve into one of those rejected books to prevent a big block of tedium once I’ve run out of crisp, new ones to read.

My progress has been slower than I’d like. I used to get a lot of reading done on my daily train commute but since that has been reduced this year, I’ve noticed just how much that extra hour and a bit contributed to my reading time. Still, I haven’t been doing too badly this year.

I’ve already made my way through Susan Cooper’s The Dark Is Rising Sequence (five books in all) Angela Carter’s Book of Fairy Tales, Stephen Fry’s latest autobiography The Fry Chronicles, Love in the Time of Cholera and The Great Gatsby. I’ve started to sink my teeth into Ovid’s Metamorphoses which I’ve wanted to read for ages but only just managed to get a copy of.

Love in the Time of Cholera was a bit like walking through treacle in places. It has a very slow pace which captures the lingering passage of days that one of the main characters, Florentino Ariza, attempts to fill as he waits a lifetime for the opportunity to re-declare his adoration to the love of his life, Fermina Daza. It took me a good few weeks to slog through the slower parts of the novel (wonderfully rich and detailed as they were) which has put me slightly behind on my resolution. 

I adored the Angela Carter book and the long awaited sequal to Fry's Moab is My Washpot. The eponoymous volume of  The Dark Is Rising Sequence was a childhood favourite, first encountered in school. I'm quite surprised I never got around to reading the other four books at the time, but even reading as an adult, they was still plenty to enjoy about this fanatsy.

I’ve got a fair few books to get through yet, (hopefully a little bit quicker than my progress so far- there are so many books I want to buy) so the experiment continues.