So when it came to picking a new book this morning, I had the same old guilt about the myriad of books that have sat on my shelves for years and I’ve never got round to doing. Cloud Atlas, The Book Thief, Next, Under the Dome, etc. Generally they are really huge, hefty and hard-going, but I do still want to read them at some point.

Anyway, I forced myself upon one that’s been sat there since probably my nineteenth birthday - a six hundred page novel called In the Woods. It was a gift from a friend and it sounded pretty interesting, but a book that long needs to be worth my time. And so I read the first few pages this morning but it didn’t grab me.

I’m not ready to read it. I don’t know if you get that. But sometimes some books require you to be of the right age, the right frame of mind, or of the right understanding. 1984 was impossible the first time I tried, about eight years ago, but this year it was amazing.

Basically, then, I’ve decided that I’m going to stop feeling stupid about books that have gone a long time without being read, and I’m just going to actually read what I want to read at the time, instead of forcing myself into things I know I’m not strictly in the mood to enjoy.

I will get round to them all in the end, but it shouldn’t matter what order I read them in. They don’t know. I just need to work on shaking off my idiotic guilt.

This has been a text post. Please continue with your day now.

  1. free-as-wind said: I am the same. I have books on my shelves that I’ve had for ages but haven’t read.
  2. quiquito said: I like reading about your books and your thoughts :)
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