Bookish and Bewildered

Being a semi-functional adult - my life is incredibly busy.

Incredibly... somewhat obnoxiously busy one might venture to say.

I’m sure you can relate.

Try as I might, I don’t really seem to have time for the things that I love doing anymore. Like reading.

Between you and me - I have a vast array of books.

Okay, to be honest, I’m a hoarder.

But I don’t seem to have time to get through them all. So instead of tucking into these literary treasures and feeling intellectually nourished, instead I add to my ever increasing trove and feel guilty that the majority have gone untouched.

The upshot is that with all things, there came a breaking point.

I had worked hard all week and yet still somehow reached the weekend with a brimming ‘to do’ list filled with mundane household jobs that would gobble up my time - including “wash windows” and “do a grocery shop.”

All I wanted to do was curl up and read.

And so I did the unthinkable. Rather than using the weekend to prep for the week ahead, instead I rested. I curled up with a book.

I didn’t touch the windows.

I didn’t do a shop.

And I have to say, it felt amazing.

So amazing that I didn’t want that buzz to end...

Which is when I came up with a plan.

I wanted to see how many books I could read in three months. And those books had to exclusively come from my heaving bookcase.

I worked out that (realistically) I could get through 100 pages of a book a day, and that would probably mean I could comfortably finish a book a week. With two days of extra wiggle room at the weekend in case I fell behind of course...

Which means 67 books in three months.

(Give or take)

Which might not be a big deal to you but sounds like heaven to me.

As you can see I have my first five all picked out...

- A Conjuring Of Light by VE Schwab

- Dolly by Susan Hill

- The Binding by Bridget Collins

- The Magicians by Lev Grossman

And

- Other Words For Smoke by Sarah Maria Griffin

Obviously this reading schedule is going to be a bit of an adjustment. I’m a practical person and tend to put things I want to do on the back burner in favour of the most practical immediate thing I actually need to do instead.

Mind numbing things that come with age and an overwhelming sense of responsibility. Like grouting for example.

Nobody really needs to grout.

I bet that a person could go a whole lifetime without grouting a day in their life and yet shuffle off this mortal coil feeling wholey fulfilled never having spent a day getting back pain in a bathroom.

My crippling need to be an “adult” in a time-effective and efficient manner is great in a way. But it’s also detrimental when one is attempting to complete the entire 19 book PLL series for the pure unadulterated hell of it.

However I know I can do anything so set my mind to. So, 100 pages a day should be entirely doable... right?

I mean, I love reading. I’m the kind of creepy person who spends hours and hours to select a brand new crisp book and then (back at home) violently flick the pages to smell the delicious tang of printing ink before settling down with a huge mug of tea and a comfortable blanket to crack the cover. And so therefore I’m looking forward to this personal challenge with interest...

And a competing sense of overwhelming nervousness.

But there we go.