A Quick Ballscratching: A Post About Books

It was also July 25 last year when I posted this. That’s purely coincidental. I have less number of books on the list this year compared to last year. But I’m busier and got more writing gigs than last year. So let’s just leave it at that.

My Little Nook and Mini-Library

Why I am blogging about this again? Primarily to encourage myself to keep on reading, because there are zillion of books out there I haven’t known and read yet. And I want them all, or at least hoard as many as I can, read them, sleep with them, know the characters who live in them, live their worlds, breathe the air they breathe, witness their suffering, see their lives go to pieces, watch them put their lives back together, a sweet dose of shock of recognition after shock of recognition, facing challenges and overcoming hurdles, backing away and heading on, leaving me hungrier and thirstier, as I reach out for a cold bottle of Red Horse, and a hearty smoke outside.

Damn good books do that to you, and you’re damn glad they did.

So nothing’s change with my target. The goal is still to read 100 books this year. It could be biographies, how-to books (very rarely these days), and novels. Mostly novels are on the list this time. It’s a very short list, too. But still a list and I love a reading list especially when there are new authors in them. I’m happy to see them there because that means I’m making some progress. Qlso vhey make my list a bit nicer.

Again, I am far behind from hitting my target, much far behind than last time, coincidentally, also July 25 when I posted it. Oh, I've said that already? Wtf. Must be the Red Horse. But, you see, list like this is good. I mean it’s good to see some efforts you put into it, unless you're just creating a fake list. Mine isn't a fake list. It's honest list of an honest reader, who loves to list books he's read and see if he's exerted enough efforts, good enough efforts to pat his back and scratch his balls just for the heck of it.

So here are the books I’ve read since the start of January this year:

1. The Paladin of the Lost Hour (Harlan Ellison)
2. The Wind-Up Bird Chronicle (Haruki Murakami)
3. Catching Fire (Suzanne Collins)
4. Dubliners (James Joyce)
5. Are You There God? It's Me, Margaret (Judy Blume)
6. Galloway (Louis L’Amour)
7. Mockingjay (Suzanne Collins)
8. Kafka On The Shore (Haruki Murakami)
9. The Sky-Liners (Louis L’Amour)
10. Woody Allen: A Biography (Eric Lax)
11. The Art of the Deal (Donald Trump)
12. Neuromancer (William Gibson)
13. The Name of the Rose (Umberto Eco)
14. Here Comes, There Goes, You Know Who (William Saroyan)
15. Rickles’ Letters (Don Rickles with David Ritz)
16. Now and Then (Joseph Heller)
17. To Have and Have Not (Ernest Hemingway)
18. The Big Sleep (Raymond Chandler)
19. Farewell, My Lovely (Raymond Chandler)

Enough for ballscratching, I’ll stop here. If you have some things to say, just anything, let me know on the comment below. If not, just go away.