Trying

Okay. So I've become neglectful again. Always neglectful. I post stuff on tumblr, and then I forget about this, if I even have time to write at all.

Anyway, I have a massive pile of books that I'm reading this summer - including a second attempt at Infinite Jest. To save time, here's some posts from tumblr:

THE LIST

Hanif Kureishi - Intimacy

Yann Martel - The Facts Behind The Helsinki Roccamatios

Don Delillo - Cosmopolis

Haruki Murakami - Blind Willow, Sleeping Woman

David Foster Wallace - Infinite Jest

Don Delillo - Great Jones Street

Aldous Huxley - Brave New World

Terry Pratchett - Witches Abroad

David Mitchell - Cloud Atlas

Andrew Marr - A History of Modern Britain

Irvine Welsh - Trainspotting

Michael Ondaatje - The English Patient

James Ellroy - L.A. Confidential

Bill Bryson - A Short History of Nearly Everything

Alice Sebold - The Almost Moon

Barack Obama - The Audacity of Hope

Barack Obama - Dreams from my Father

Chimamanda Ngozi Adichie - The Thing Around Your Neck

Leo Tolstoy - Anna Karenina

Philip Pullman - Tiger in the Well

Haruki Murakami - Kafka on the Shore

Helen Oyeyemi - The Icarus Girl

James Frey - A Million Little Pieces

Simon Schama - History of Britain 2 and 3

Simon Schama - The American Future - A History.

Kazuo Ishiguro - The Remains of the Day

Hanif Kureishi - Something to Tell You

A couple of additions ^ but I’m 3 books down, so progressing well. Started Infinite Jest a few days ago. Enjoying it way more than I remember last year. Currently on track with the “Infinite Summer” schedule. Looking at all my notes and underlinings from last year helps the story make sense. I like the mention of Toblerone in various characters’ storylines.

Starting Blind Willow, Sleeping Woman today.

Just about to go to work and start day 6 out of 9. I swear even though it’s 25 degrees outside, it’s at least 30 in the shop, because we have no ventilation and massive lights that are more effective as heaters than lights.

....

Adding another book to what is beginning to seem like a never-ending list - I’ve just bought Don Delillo’s ‘Underworld’ - another almost 1000 page long novel, which I won’t be starting until I’ve finished Infinite Jest. Reading 2 huge books at the same time is a bit much.

After 9 days of working in an uncomfortably hot shop, I have 2 days off. I don’t really know what to do with myself. Earlier I started reading my textbook for the next course I’m doing (which doesn’t start until October) because I felt like I should be working. My intentions for tomorrow are to continue sitting outside and read Blind Willow, Sleeping Woman and Infinite Jest.

I think I realised why I’m enjoying IJ so much more this time around. It’s because I’m not analysing it as I’m reading it, trying to work out what’s going to happen, trying to make sense of the characters and how they’ll all eventually interlink. It is what it is. I’m currently around where I gave up last time, but I’m definitely not giving up this time.

....

I've been doing a lot of Berlin planning, bought a guide book (it seems as though my life is all books right now), trying to find places to eat and go to to fill up our 8 days there. Found somewhere to hire bikes from which would be pretty ace. Now just hoping for good weather.

I might start documenting properly all this reading. I can't remember if I wrote it on here, but last October I made a list of things I wanted to achieve in the next 12 months. Small, trivial things generally. One of them was that I wanted to read 40 books. I think now, looking at my summer reading aim, it'll probably be achievable, so I might as well say something about it.

Even though I love books I never spend enough time reading. I read half a book and then give up, or try to read 3 books at once and fail on all front. I rarely read a book twice. Even 1984, which is one of my favourite books, I can't claim to have read fully more than twice. I'm sure when I was younger I read far more, but now I have a shorter attention span, and it's become more difficult to sit for more than 15 minutes and read. I am easily distracted. According to the list I've made, since October I've read 16 books. So in the next 3 and a half months, I have to read 24.

Now I feel like I should be reading instead of writing. I'll go and do that. But I will update again soon. Even if it's only what I'm posting on tumblr. Well, I'll try and vary it at least a little.

bai.x.