Anyone who knows me will tell you that I’m a planner. I love to plan as much as (more than?) to actually do what I’ve planned. I plan trips, semesters (teaching or studying), comps and dissertation, Vincent’s life, and of course, reading.
One reason I love to plan is that it does actually help me get things done. For example, when I plan the semester, I start with a spreadsheet that has every day in the term as the first column. After removing class days and days I’m unavailable, I’m left with over 100 days to get the work done. Even with 200 pages of reading a week, my homework is doable if I break it down like this. I can write a goal into the spreadsheet for every day and make sure it gets done. Chipping away at big projects does allow me to finish them, even if it takes awhile.
They still look about the same, though with different books. Now, however, the floor around this small table has five piles with about 30 books each. Those are my "to read" piles. I think there are more in those piles now than there were in July, since I've acquired a few books since then.
One of the elements of my job that I love the most, though, is reading book reviews. If I come across a title while I'm buying for the library that I want to read, it goes into my Library Thing collection with the tag "to-read." Since I'm not actively working on the "to-read" list right now, because of all the books on the floor, it has grown to 442 titles, as of today. Here are a few:
I think my planning has once again caused me to overreach. If my floor piles continue to grow, the list of 442 will also continue to grow. It almost seems like I may never read another book, but somehow, I'm still reading every night.
What's on your to-read list?
I was talking about this with another professor today--how little time I have to do any exploratory or pleasure reading. As I put on my own blog today, professionally I'd love to read more Graham Harman. I'd also like to have 4 months off to read Heidegger's Being and Time. Personally, I've been reading some old comics at night before bed.
ReplyDeleteI had an English professor friend who, when I asked him what he was reading for fun, looked at me in despair and groaned, "nothing." Nor had he since before grad school. Something wrong with that! So, I plan my evening: 2 hours of every evening goes to grad school, 1 hour to pleasure reading. Which is sometimes grad school-related...
ReplyDeleteOooo ... Ravi Zacharias. I've only read one of his books, but my husband has bought several I haven't read yet. Looking forward to it!
ReplyDeleteMy "to read" list is insane. Just insane. Lately I've been pulling only from my TBR collection (which is so huge that it's kind of like going to the bookstore, so I have lots of choices) in hopes of making some more room in my teensy place for a few people :o)