Reading

I mentioned in my last Slow Living post that I'd bought an e-Reader. Just a small one. It has however, already had a noticeable impact. I read quite a bit, but not in a sensible way. In the same way that I have oodles of half-made crochet projects lying around, I also have piles of half-read books just waiting to be finished.

I usually have about six or seven books on the go at once. I like to dip in and out until a story finally hooks me and I finish the rest of that book in one go. Then it's back to dipping in and out. Sometimes it can be a couple of years between dips (which makes library-borrowing a bit annoying), but I rarely forget a plot. This means that I also rarely reread a book as after a page or two I remember what happens and put it down.

All this is fine if you have infinite shelf space, but I don't. It's also coming to dawn on me that I'm slowly amassing a huge pile of paper and that this might be a bit wasteful. Hence the e-reader. I'm sure it wasn't made in a way that is any more eco-friendly than chopping down trees and making paper, but eventually, given how much I read, it should even out. At least I hope so. Also, so far, all the books I've wanted as e-books have been way cheaper than the real thing.

Anyway, to give you an idea of the scale of the problem, here's what I'm reading right now. I recently finished Before I go to Sleep, by S J Watson, which I read in a couple of sittings, and so now I'm back to this pool of half-reads until another one hooks me...

The Children's Book - A S Byatt
Pure - Andrew Miller
The Pillars of the Earth - Ken Follett
Dominion - C J Sansom
The Wise Man's Fear - Patrick Rothfuss
The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy - Douglas Adams
The Secret Agent - Joseph Conrad
Les Miserables - Victor Hugo

Have you read any of these?

Oh yeah, and a new toy needs a new cover, right? It was also a good excuse to crack open some funky-coloured mercerised cotton that's been in the yarn pile for far too long!

PS - The e-reader will never replace real books completely. Not for me. What would I read in the bath...?

PPS - Kobo, Kindle, Sony, Nook, if you're reading this - waterproof e-readers. That's the next gap in the market that you need to fill.