A Hole In The Books

Popsugar’s 2016 Reading Challenge is the best New Year’s Resolution I have ever made. I am having a blast with this thing. I’m reading books I wouldn’t normally be reading. I’m having fun researching what books I could be reading to fill a particular category. (I do love research!)

Phillip and Kelly both commented, yesterday, that they’d never seen me read at such a rapid pace as I’m at now. I guess all I needed was the right motivation. (Well, cutting off cable TV, plus losing internet access on the laptop, have both helped me consider picking up a book at home more often.)

Yesterday, I finished The Aeronaut’s Windlass – that 600+ book I’ve been working on forever. I’m still reading Minutes Before Sunset, and I’m still enjoying it, but it’s not part of the Challenge. Still, it felt weird to suddenly have no Drafts saved for the Challenge. (I start a blog post when I start a book for the Challenge, save it to Draft, and make notes as I read the book. The reading and the writing progress more or less simultaneously. When the book is finished, I polish up the post a bit, and hit “Publish”.)

It suddenly felt like there was a hole in the flow of books.

I have a book on hold, specifically for the Challenge. I’m in position 2 for the one copy the library has. It’s due back in two days. I thought I could wait a few days for it to get to me, but I guess I couldn’t.

The library has been telling me, for about a week, that a book I have on my “For Later” shelf is available – multiple copies on the shelves of both the Capitol Hill Library (a few blocks from home) and the Central Library (a few blocks from work).

(I’m also learning a lot about the finer points of The Seattle Public Library this year – like paused holds, returning an eBook early, and the “For Later” shelf.)

I just couldn’t wait for the next book. I walked over to the Central Library at lunch today. Thanks to the nifty online map, I knew exactly where to go to find the book. I made it back to my desk, book in hand, in time to actually eat lunch.

I’m seeing the end of the challenge already. I have all but two of the eight remaining categories mapped out. I don’t want it to end so soon. I’m thinking I should do some “bonus” rounds – read extra books for those categories which were part of the multi-category books.