So you know when you have put something off for such a long time and it gets to be so long since you have done it that a task that wasn’t that big to begin with suddenly takes on epic proportions and becomes akin to scaling a mountain instead of taking a little trip to the grocery store?
Well, that is how I feel about this blog.
And cleaning my bathroom.
But the procrastination stops here today! (Yep. It’s raining and I am doing Nanowrimo so I have something bigger to procrastinate with now).
I am going to start small here, and talk about a weird little re-occurring phenomena I noticed last week when I was judiciously spending a $20 gift certificate at Indigo:
I now only purchase books I have already read.
I know. Such a stunning reveal. Is your mind blown? Has your world completely changed? Are you ready to quit your office job and move to an ashram in India where you will live off hashish and good feelings?
No? Just checking…
As a librarian, I am surrounded by literally thousands of books. I read a lot of them.Most of them I do not feel like I need to own. But some of them, like my purchases last week, are books I want to see on my shelf. I want to glance up and be reminded of their lyricism, the way they made me feel when I read them. I want to be able to put them in the hands of my friends and say, “you must read this.”
Which, incidentally is more difficult to do (but not impossible) to do with ebooks.
Here are some books that I needed to purchase after reading them:
The Book Thief by Marcus Zusak
For some reason, I have never written about this book. I read it once years ago and had my mind blown by its simple, lyrical and poignant language. For instance, open the book at any page and you will come across a description that belongs in the best kind of poetry.
For example, I just opened up to page 27 and this is what I read: ‘The day was gray, the color of Europe. Curtains of rain were drawn around the car.”
Do: Read this book before you see the movie. I am sure the movie will be wonderful, but guaranteed the book is wonderfuller. As in more full of wonder.
Don’t: Read this book in a public place unless you are comfortable having red, bloodshot eyes and a snotty nose and making those embarrassingly jagged sobbing sounds. Trust me on this one.
The Magician King
Read my thoughts on this one here.
Among Others
Read my thoughts on this one here.
The Dispossessed
Read my thoughts on this “ambiguous utopia” (how can you not want to read it after that description?)Â here.
And the book stamp? Designed by my lovely husband and given to me as a Christmas gift last year. Now, when I loan my books out, I might even have a chance of getting them back!
Now maybe I should go clean my bathroom. Ugh. Procrastinating by doing older, procrastinated chores is hard…
Lina Branter 
Of the books you mentioned, I’ve only read The Book Thief and Angela and I both agree that it was a fantastic book. So now I’m going to have to read the other books on your list. I really didn’t need to add any books to MY list. I’ll be older than Grandma before I get them all read. I love the stamp. What a clever husband you have! Anyway, good luck on your writing (and bathroom cleaning).
At least with writing the blog you can pretend that you are doing warm-up exercises for Nanowrimo (which, not being a writer or a librarian – I had to look up). Good luck with that.
As for cleaning the bathroom, don’t you have a chore list for offsprings for that?