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"