“All the books we own, both read and unread, are the fullest expression of self we have at our disposal. ... But with each passing year, and with each whimsical purchase, our libraries become more and more able to articulate who we are, whether we read the books or not.”
― Nick Hornby, The Polysyllabic Spree
Having recently received Nick Hornby's "Ten Years in the Tub" in the mail (and subsequently burying my nose in it), I realized how much books I have lying around unread, unfinished and abandoned. To give you the complete idea, here is a list I've compiled of books I am currently reading:
On the iPhone:
- Stephen King's 'On Writing: A Memoir of the Craft'
- Francois Truffaut's 'The Films in My Life'
On the Nook E-Reader
- Ellen DeGeneres' 'Seriously...I'm Kidding'
- Rob Sheffield's 'Talking to Girls About Duran Duran'
Physical Books
- Nick Hornby's 'Ten Years in the Tub'
- Donald Spoto's Elizabeth Taylor
Magazines
- Monocle Issue 67 (I still have a pretty big stack of magazines to go through. Call it researching the market if you will)
Will I ever finish any of the books? Have I subconsciously abandoned some of them? I rarely abandon books that I've started reading, no matter how bad it is. But now that we're all a little older, (and our hearts a little bolder) it feels like there's so much less idle time for indulging in the pleasures of reading. In hindsight, it may seem like the time is in abundant, yet somehow it's always difficult to reach a state of mental calmness; the kind that reassures you that you are completely at peace with your life. I guess sometimes it's not about the time at hand, it's about the thoughts that consume your mind with that time at hand.
