BiblioAddict The First Step on the Road to Recovery

On reading too many books, a bit of a conundrum, two cities, and a big machine:

What am I reading?  One too many books, that’s what.  I need help!  One of my goals this year was to cut down on the number of books I read at a single time.  I was doing pretty well too.  Granted, I went from reading two books at a time, to three, and now to four – but four was the absolute limit, I tell ya.  Any more than four and I know where this road ends.  It ends with my reading ten plus books at one time and hardly ever finishing any of them.  So, no more.

Only now I have a bit of conundrum.  I’ m currently reading:

The Forever War by Dexter Filkins.  I’ve already gushed about it here, and it’s still just as good.

Let the Great World Spin by Colum McCann.  I haven’t gushed about this one yet, but everyone else has, and so far it’s lived up to the hype.  This novel is ridiculously well written.  I love it when authors make poetry out of seemingly simply constructed sentences and that is exactly what McCann does.  The language is gorgeous and lush at the same time that it’s economical.  I love it.

The Book of Night Women by Marlon James.  I’ve seen this book around a while, but when I first saw it, I didn’t really have much of an inclination to read it.  I’m thanking my lucky stars I checked this one out from the library.  This book is unlike anything I’ve read in a very long time.  It’s no wonder this one made it so far into the Tournament of Books.  The dialogue in which this novel is written – the Jamaican English of seventeenth century slaves – is feat of wonder.  It’s consistently unique yet authentic, and very, very impressive.

Then there are the two books which have been battling it out for the fourth spot for the past week.  To read or not to read, that is the question at hand.  Both of them are library books, which is exactly the problem, because you know, due dates and all.  A few weeks ago, as you may recall, I checked out China Mieville’s The City & The City.  I started read that as my fourth book, because I’d been wanting to read some Mieville for a while.  In fact, last year I almost bought Un Lun Dun, about which I’d heard very good things.

I went for The City & The City instead, because it seemed I’d been hearing a lot of good things about it lately, plus it won the British Science Fiction Association award, and it recently made the shortlist for the Nebula awards.  What can I say?  I’m a sucker for a good award-winning novel, especially one with a premise as interesting as The City & The City.  The City & The City is essentially a murder mystery set in a city that occupies the same space as another, rival city.  The two cities share the same land, but they exist on two separate planes even though residents of one city can technically see the residents of the other city.  It’s definitely unique, but I’ll be darned if it doesn’t work.

I was reading The City & The City at a pretty happy clip until I had the bright idea to put in a hold request for Victor LaValle’s Big Machine. I’d first head about this on the Tournament of Books, too.  This book went pretty far in the the competition as well.  In fact, it got knocked out of the competition by none other than The Book of Night Women. From what I remember though, it was a pretty close call.  In any case, when I put in a hold request at the library for a copy, I didn’t think it would arrive as soon as it did.  I didn’t have much time to finish off one of my other current reads before I had to pick this one up at the library.  It seems now that the word is out that Big Machine is a book worth reading, other people have requested this at the library.  What this means for me is that I either read it before the due date, return it unread, or accrue .25 cents per day in overdue fines.  (Sidenote:  Overdue fines are .25 cents a day now?!  I mean, really?  When did this become standard policy?  Not to sound like a golden oldie or anything, but I remember when overdue fines were more like nickel or dime a day.  I understand libraries need to make their revenue and patrons – including myself – really should return books on time, but a quarter? Sheez louise.)

So what’s a girl to do?  Does she drop The City & The City, a book which she’s very much enjoying, for one with a due much more urgent?  Or does she start on the slippery slope of doom and read five books at one time?  I suppose I could drop either The Forever War or Let the Great World Spin, since I own both of those books, but I don’t want to stop in the middle of reading those either.  It seems like the thing to do is to engage in a little speed reading.  I guess I better get cracking!  Sigh. I complain, but I love having too many great things to read.  But…ahem, if you have any alternative solutions to my speed reading, I’m open to hearing them.

Happy reading all.

*It’s Monday, What Are You Reading? is a weekly meme hosted by BookJourney.

P.S.  The spammers have been out in full force lately, so unfortunately I’ve had to turn on my comment moderation.  It sucks, I know.  Blame it on the spambots.

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