Too Many Books, Too Little Time

 

These are last two novels that Books & Beer selected. The club seems to really gravitate to the classics. I'm okay with that, for the most part, but sometimes those just seem like so much work to me. I'd rather read something contemporary - or written more recently, as in the case of a lot of the historical fiction that I read. But I hate dropping books!

I started The Count of Monte Cristo by Alexandre Dumas too close to the date of the book club meeting. I hadn't realized it was such a long book and all I was able to read through was a little more than one-third of the novel before we met. After which I said, "Oh, okay, I'll read it when I'm waiting for a library book to come in." Now, two months later, I'm not really sure that I meant that. I enjoyed the story, but...

Boris Pasternak's Doctor Zhivago isn't nearly as long, but I gave myself plenty of time to read it. One of the book club members had sent out a chart of all the characters from the novel. That should have been my sign that I wasn't going to have the patience to read through that one. Once I started reading, I realized that each character went by several names and it was going to be impossible keeping them straight without keeping actual notes on a piece (or more) of paper. I figured I wouldn't pay attention the characters and just read the story. When I'd pick up the book at night, I'd wish I was reading something else. So I took the audio book out of the library figuring I'd listen to as much as I could before the book club meeting. I listened in the car, I listened while I walked. I still wasn't paying close attention to the characters, picking up little bits here and there. Eventually, it just got to be noise. That book club is this coming week, but I don't think I'm going to devote any more time to trying to finish it since I know that can never happen.

What listening to Doctor Zhivago did do for me is make me realize that with the right headset, I could easily listen to books while I walk. (I listened to Doctor Zhivago with my phone held up near my head... not the most pleasant way to walk.) I purchased an AfterShokz set of headphones and hope to start using them to listen to something more enjoyable and a bit less work this week.