Reading in hard times

It has been a long while since I finished a book (last one was Equal Rites by Terry Pratchett maybe two weeks ago) and it is funny how I feel bad about that. I know that I read for the pleasure of reading and not only to make my TBR-list smaller, but apparently I need a regular "book ending" to happen, to give me a sort of structure.
Plus, I hate to be reading so many books at the time. Anna Karenina is too big to be carried around, so I only read it at home - and as I am either at work or visiting the city until I am fall-into-bed-tired, the chapters to be read are not getting fewer. My metro read is Middlesex by Jeffrey Eugenides and is maybe the only one I am progressing with. For the size of the book it is a relatively light paperback that I read while the train rushes through the labyrinth (depending on the distance, up to 30 pages), on the neverending escalators (up to 5 pages!) and one or two pages while I am walking out until I realise that no, readwalking is definitely not possible in Moscow.
At work I use the great DailyLit system to get familiar with Moby Dick, Frankenstein, and Swann's Way. Moby Dick is far more easy to read than I expected, while Frankenstein had a surprisingly unengaging and almost boring start. It is getting better now that Dr Frankenstein himself is telling his story but duh! was this Walton annoying!
Ishmael is hilarious and I hope I'll stay with him for a long while. "Ignorance is the parent of fear" is in today's snippet. Well-said, Ishmael.

1 comments:

Elena August 3, 2009 at 4:43 PM  

Yay all the classics!! I loved Frankenstein but haven't read it in years, I think it's due a revisit.

Did you like Swann's Way? I'm currently reading In The Shadow of Young Girls In Flower (what a ridiculously long title)

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Constantly changing places is inherent to my life. Books have always been steady friends which I could bump into wherever I was all over the world.
Stumbling upon Kaminer's German stories of "Die Reise nach Trulala" in Reykjavík's city library is as moving as meeting the Icelandic sagas in Boston's Borders.
To see a book again, that I've read thousands of kilometers away makes me smile "Hey I know you.." and shake hands by thumbing through it for a while.