A look at my book goals so far this year.  In January I read nine which was about as good as I have ever done, especially since one was an 800 pager.  But.  Of those, I listened to four of them on my ipod.  I actually missed Desperate Housewives one night because I was too interested in Jodi Piccoult whilst cleaning the kitchen.  It is so great to grocery shop with a book!

Of the 13 books I specifically want to read this year I have finished none.  I am on page 337 of 631 in John Adams.  That’s barely half way!  It is good, but a plodder for sure.  I am afraid most of them will be not necessarily any easier to read, but hopefully shorter.  I have learned that one guy had to personally sign all the paper money the Colonies printed.  Luckily for him that was before carpel tunnel syndrome was invented.

I just read a book that takes place in the Revolutionary War, and of course John Adams spends some time there too.  I am listening to The State of Jones, which is eleven hours of the Civil War as it was fought in Mississippi.  I am finding some similarities.  Both times the rebels fought barefoot and with no food for weeks on end.  These people were very dedicated to their cause.  I am glad our soldiers now are better provisioned.  I suppose the rebels they are fighting may not be though.

Unfortunately my mother’s reading list is influencing mine to great effect this year.  She has no paperbackswap.com account, so she has had me order her books on my account with the understanding that I can post them when she is done.  So I have all these books sitting around my house that I have not read, and most of them look pretty good.  Yeah you can see where this is going.  For light reading I have picked up And His Lovely Wife about a politician’s wife.  Again, not on my list of 67 that I have picked up anywhere from you folks to Sharon Randall’s newspaper column to Time Magazine’s recommendations.

On an unrelated subject, I have one of those milestone birthdays coming up, never mind which one.  This and other things have caused me to think; and I think I need to see at least 49 states by the time I am 50.  This gives me a few years, but I got to looking, and a trip to the North East would pick up a lot, then I would need to hit the Carolinas and for some reason, Oregon.  Well, and Alaska, but I figure I can save that one for later.  I actually have traveled through several because I took a bus trip when I was a kid, and I can’t remember if we actually went through West Virginia on the way home, so I left it off just in case.  I also have been through Utah, but I was a wee tyke and I remember none of it.  I really would like to take the kids to Washington DC when they are old enough to travel but too young to be sullen.  Whatever age that is, it will probably not encompass all of my kids at the same time. Hmm.

 

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