Sunday, December 30, 2007

The "why" post

Many years ago, while I was still in school, I used to read like nobody's bidness. My teacher would write on my report card that I was rushing through my assignments too quickly - so I could read. So what if the only reason I wanted to go to the mall was to get more books? So what if I was deprived of cable, Nintendo and all the other hallmarks of a 90's childhood? Some of the best people I knew were in books.

All this changed during my six years of university. Studying and a surprising new social life curbed the habit. My book-a-week habit dwindled to (maybe) a book-a-month. I also got distracted by the siren call of the Internet (the Never-Ending Student Time Waster) and TV (I had cable for the first time. No more Peasant Vision, 3-channel death for me!)

This made me sad. This made me depressed. Something was missing from my life. Then it dawned on me: books were a whole lot of awesome piled on more awesome, topped by awesome sauce. Why was I letting them gather dust on the shelves? I worked as a library manager for a year and suddenly I was discovering even more books that I hadn't, and wasn't, reading. And still, I was lazy.

So it's come to this. My New Year's resolutions for 2008.

1) I'm going to tackle the huge backlog of books on my shelves that I've neglected for so long. To do this, I'll cut back on TV and read more books than I ever thought I could, and titles that I never thought I would.

2) To give me a boost in the rear, I'm going to write about every single book in a blog. If no one else reads this, I don't care. A year from today, I'm going to see if I'm more satisfied with my life.

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