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[chelseagirl]

During the semester, my time for pleasure reading is fairly limited, but I can't ever not be reading at all. I seem to be suffering from book-anhedonia, though. I haven't been enjoying anything all that much; I wonder if it's because I haven't had the time to immerse myself or I've been making bad choices.

I *have* been rereading the Lymond Chronicles, most recently books 3 & 4, and I'm certainly enjoying those but I feel, I don't know, distanced from them. Perhaps I should have marathoned them all together; I read the first two a few months apart last spring. I *adored* these books when I was an undergrad -- I used to check a couple out from the library every school vacation as a treat (I remember it spanned the time my family relocated because I checked the first few out from the library in Newburgh and the last ones up in our little town outside of Buffalo); I was so sad when I was finished.

I started Connie Willis' The Doomsday Book for book club and once again, enjoying it but not feeling compelled; I decided to set it aside and finish it closer to the meeting time. Though as our Censorship Exhibition is going up that weekend I may be missing the meeting.

Since I'm still collecting Alice in Wonderland related material, I'd ordered Frank Beddor's The Looking Glass Wars and an anthology called Alice Redux. Do not bother with these. (teenygozer, I'm looking at you.) The first just strips out all the wit and fun; the second is mostly fairly bad literary mag efforts, written by people who've obviously thought a lot less about it that I have (soooo obvious most of them), and leavened with excerpts from some very good Alice-related novels that I've already read. Except for Rikki Ducornet's The Jade Cabinet, which looks fabulous and is now on my wishlist. These are books I would immediately resell except that I'm still collecting on Alice and kind of still thinking of doing a large-scale academic project on Alice in her modern cultural manifestations. (Although Will Brooker kind of beat me to it, but I think I could differentiate mine enough.)

The one book I just started and have been devouring is Hanif Kureishi's The Black Album -- the character flip-flops emotionally in an unconvincing way but I'm still hooked. Maybe I'm just entering a litfic phase. Or a postcolonial writers phase. Or something.

Comments

[(Anonymous)]

I'm pretty sure Connie Willis was a fan once upon a time, and that I knew her from some con or other back in the 80s. I love hearing that fannish writers got published professionally, especially women. Two of the women on my flist are fannish/pro writers.

Jon got me Alice Redux as a b-day present long ago and I agree with your assessment, it wasn't very interesting; I found myself "fixing" it as I want along. I hope someday I get off my duff and sell it on eBay. Have you ever tried selling your books & such on eBay? I know that in your trendy Manhattan apartment, space is a premium! Now that I have the new computer and Seah gave me her old (but really nice!) digital camera, I have no excuse not to get rid of the stacks of unwanted chotchkies and books around here!

I find I do not read as much as I once did due to failing eyesight! I have reading glasses, but for some reason, am resistant to pulling them out. My mother is and was the same way, and I made fun of her for it years ago. I've actually been thinking of getting my eyes operated on, as I miss the enjoyment of casual reading. You should see how big the type on my screen is!

[chelseagirl.livejournal.com]

teenygozer, this is you?


I resell books quite a lot. Haven't done eBay but I sell on Amazon.com, or to the Strand, trade on Paperbackswap.com, donate to Housing works, etc. However, as I said in my post, I may still do an academic project on some aspect of this so don't want to get rid of the books and have to find them again later. Oh well.

I have reading glasses too (I fear bifocals for some reason); my problem is I forget to put them on (or occasionally leave them home when I am working in the library) and end up with eyestrain headaches from reading through my regular glasses. :-(

[nutmeg3.livejournal.com]

Don't fear bifocals. Bifocals are a gift from the gods. Just get the progressive kind, so no one can see the line and think you're old. *g*

[chelseagirl.livejournal.com]

I'm such a slave to fashion that the glasses I'm wearing have small enough lenses I think they might impede bifocaling. Plus when I was in grade school my eye doctor gave me bifocals for awhile and I used to read over the top. So I have all kinds of weak excuses for why I'm not doing it, but I"m just not. ;-)

[teenygozer.livejournal.com]

Oopsy! Yes, sorry, it's me! I find that sometimes I'm signed into my flist at work, but when I create a new tab to reply to soemthing on my flist, I am no longer signed in in the new tab. It hasn't happened in a while, so I stopped thinking to check.

I wish the world was like the computer screen, where you can tell it to use bigger fonts at the click of a mouse!

How do you like my Christmas Kitten icon? He's my default for a while.

[chelseagirl.livejournal.com]

*hee* Wouldn't that be useful!

Very cute . . .

[nutmeg3.livejournal.com]

I go through phases like what you're describing periodically, and usually they just have to pass on their own. I find it frustrating as hell when it happens, though, because reading is normally such a refuge, and it hurts to lose that. Good luck getting past whatever's blocking you.

[teenygozer.livejournal.com]

I didn't mean to post anonymoustly, I got kicked outa being signed in for some reason!

I think the problem is A) I need stronger glasses, B) hell, let's be honest, I need graduated bifocals, and C) my optometrist is in the town I used to live in, and it's a pain to get out there these days, so I never bother to set up an eye appointment. But yeah, my mom and I never reach in the bag for the reading glasses, we peer over the tops of our glasses to read something 3 inches from our nose through one eye, as we are both incredibly nearsighted!

[chelseagirl.livejournal.com]

It may just be that my interests are shifting, as they periodically do. I started reading sf and fantasy again about five years ago (drifted away in college) and I was so excited to have a new field to play in -- so many new authors etc.; so even though I usually alternate between sf/f and litfic, I've been reading a lot of sf/f. Maybe I've just burned out a bit or skimmed a fair amount of the cream of writers. I picked up a novel called Ursula, Under that a friend loaned me a couple of months back (oops) and was starting to get absorbed by that, so hopefully it's the change of pace I need.