::ka-chunk::

[viktor_haag]

A long vacation looms once again this year. Last minute work tasks have been wrapped up, and the hatches battened down, until the second week in January when I stagger back into the office.

Once again this year, I will likely be tracking the number of books I can put away during the holidays, in an effort to clear out my reading pile. There may also be comments about boardgames played, since I haven't done that in a while (comment on them; been playing lots).

Comments

[mylescorcoran]

Clear your reading pile? Hah! I try to attack my unread books over the holidays, but I usually end up with more than I started with. And as there are probably about a hundred books in the pile I despair and eat Christmas cake instead.

Marzipan, you never mock me with your unread pages.

[viktor-haag.livejournal.com]

Well, it certainly doesn't take long for my reading pile to balloon out again to the typical float of 5 to 6 books after the holidays. But in the past few years, I've managed to be bloody minded enough to pile through them during the break and reach an empty pile plus bonus books at the end. That is liable not to happen this year, as I'm not even sure that I want to make the effort.

I have recently noticed that although ostensibly I profess to like F&SF, books of those ilk tend to make me labour longer and last longer in my stack, and also the pile of unread F&SF around the house is proportionally larger. Mysteries and thrillers, on the other hand, which I tend officially to "not like as much as fantasy or sci-fi" get read quickly, and with more enjoyment.

In my middle age, I think I'm discovering that I don't actually really like F&SF all that much, and that my tastes run to mysteries and thrillers, actually, more. And that even a selected chunk of what one might call "the modern novel" gets read with more relish and more quickly than any genre fiction (McArthy, Coetzee being the discoveries from last year in the "hey! I rather like this!" category).

[viktor-haag.livejournal.com]

Oh, but also, marzipan? Yes. Firmly, yes.