Agendum

Okay, so I figured it out. Being super-anal about all things on the printed page (at least, books that I like to read), I like to have an agenda for my reading. A compass to steer by. An action plan. A chart. Literary cartography.

When I don’t, I feel lost.

I’ve felt lost these past couple of weeks.

Currently, I’m finishing up my Philip Jose Farmer phase. I’m nearing the end of my tenth paperback of his, and have three more to go. That should take me up to Memorial Day. And as I wrote earlier here, I’m looking for some topic to focus on for my summer reading. Last year, it was WW II. The year before, it was Shakespeare.

After long consideration, I’ve settled on a topic that both interests me immensely and simultaneously horrifies and repulses me.

Hmmm. What could it be?

The atomic bomb; specifically the Manhattan Project.

I have two thick book on the shelves behind me that I’ve been anticipating reading for a long time: The Making of the Atomic Bomb and The Decision to Drop the Atomic Bomb. Neither book is a quick read. Probably each will take a month. Which gives me time to seek out a third book on the Project to fill out the third month of summer.

Maybe not your cup of tea, but it appeals to the unrealized physicist in me. And it ties in with my mid-life desire of late to read up on War.

Since I always read two books at once, the other topic of reading will be the new-found appeal of listening to an audio CD while reading along with the book. Once PJF is done, I plan of reading/listening to Anathem by Neal Stephenson, to be followed up by Great Expectations by Dickens. Again, real long, slow reads. To date in 2013 I’ve read sixteen books. Over the summer, I’m going to kick it into low gear and add four, maybe five to that total.

Yay! Hopper’s happy again!