Sunday, July 3, 2011

Reading Reflection

I think I'm in...not exactly a reading slump, but an obsession slump. See, I have this little tendency to obsess and organize. I think if I had stayed in cataloging I would have become completely insane. Last time I was at Half Price Books I realized I had lost the fun of buying new books, trying new things. I was only getting stuff that was "on my list" and I've weeded my personal library down to the infamous list as well. Most of the new books I have are ones I read as a reviewer and "have" to blog. New books from the library are almost all holds, no more fun browsing.

I miss having access to a BIG library system, where I can browse shelves and find something new to take home. I know almost every title that's on our shelves, which makes for great reader's advisory, but not fun reading discoveries.

I miss going to library sales and picking up a box or two of books that look like fun. Everything in our sale I've weeded or sorted myself - I know what's there.

It's not fun anymore.

I started realizing how much I missed the joy of discovery and "free" reading when I started paying frequent visits to the comic shop in the next town and getting random free comics. Of course, this was all an evil plot, because now I have to buy more comics so I can find out what happened in the storylines, but...I was having fun.

Every once in a while, I have to ease back on the scheduling, the obsession, and tamp down my inner cataloguer. I can't do much about my hectic schedule and massive amounts of stress right now, but I can let "the list" go.

So I went to Half-Price books and bought a nice stack of books and comics I've never read before, never even seen before, and which aren't on the list.

I'm going to have fun again. Even if I have to schedule it!

For those who are interested, I bought...

Dark Angels by Katherine Langrish
Coffin Scarcely Used by Colin Watson
Midnighters: Touching Darkness by Scott Westerfeld

Comics
Exiles: Down the Rabbit Hole
Tom Strong and the robots of doom 1
Heroic Age Avengers 1
Caped 1
Heroic Age Hawkeye and Mockingbird 1
Brightest Day: Flash 1

I also bought a few Mercedes Lackey books and an issue of Jeff Smith's Shazam and a Batman the brave and the bold comic which were "on the list"

2 comments:

Ms. Yingling said...

We all go through slumps, especially in the summer! it looks like you got some good new things to read. Try to go out and have some non book fun as well. No longer really sure whAt that is, but some people apparently have it!

Jennifer said...

Heh, I need to make a zoo trip, which is what I like to do for fun. Unfortunately, I just haven't had time...