Reading Update - June

My new year's resolution for 2009 reading was fairly simple, keep track of the books that I read over the course of the year. Since the task was simple, I have managed to do so without much difficulty for almost the first six months of the year. With less than two weeks left in the first half of the year, I have finished 25 books. I am currently reading three books at present and it is highly likely that I will finish all of them by June 30th giving me almost 30 for the first six months. If I maintain that pace it would work out to close to 60 for the year. Since I have never done this before, I have no basis for comparison, but I think I would be satisfied if I hit that number.

Obviously it would be easy to build up the numbers by intentionally choosing books that were short, easy to read or both. Thus far, I have avoided that temptation, basically reading what I want to read. Something that I am very pleased about is that I have done a good job of reading the books I have purchased this year rather than allowing them to lie around gathering dust.

Two of the books I am currently reading fall into that category - Jonathan Bate's "Soul of Age" - his biography of Shakespeare's ideas and the latest in the Angela Thirkell canon - "Cheerfulness Breaks In." Once I finish the latter work, I just have to read "Marling Hall," another Thirkell novel and I think I will have read everything I bought this year. "Cheerfulness Breaks In" was written in 1940 about life in the fictional county of Barsetshire during 1939 - the first year of World War II - the part sometimes known as the "phony war." Many of the characters in this book appeared in some of the earlier novels, confirming my thought that they need to be read in sequence.

The third book currently underway is part of an effort to read myself through my own library - this time with David Halberstam's last book, "The Coldest Winter" about the Korean War. I bought that book not that long ago, but it has been on the shelf for sometime so I am glad I am working my way through it. Actually work isn't really a fair word, Halberstam was such a good writer that his books read like fiction. Reading this book while thinking about my own writing has made me try to understand something of how he does ,what he does. Part of it, I think, goes back to his experience as a newspaper reporter which helped him write in a more reader friendly style. I can't draw any other conclusions as of yet, but it is certainly something I will think about some more.

But in any event, that resolution has been well kept and while it may sound simple, it is the first time that I have ever done it. In my next post, I will do a similar check in on my writing goals for 2009 and see how things stand in that arena.