Falling off the Wagon
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t the start of this year I joined the Triple Dare Challenge @ James Reads Books. (actually I renamed this as a project since I know I don’t do well with challenges). I wanted to clear a little space in my bookshelves that I can then fill up with new purchases. James has made it super easy. We just read from our existing library until end of April. We can buy any amount of new books (and believe me I am sure to be top of the class at following that rule). We just can’t read them until May.
I’ve done well so far having read eight books from the real bookshelves and the e-reader since January. The shelves are still stuffed due to some rather over-enthusiastic purchases of Pereine Press editions last month. But at least I have space to move things around now and see what’s lurking in the darker recesses.
But I confess I fell off the wagon last week. I was packing for my flight back to UK from Michigan later that day. It was going to be a long overnight flight so my choice of reading matter had to be spot on. I had The Old Devils by Kingsley Amis (part of my Booker Prize list) with me and I’d already started it. But at the last minute it got ditched in favour of The Fatal Grace by Louise Penny which I’d bought only the previous night. My sole reason for this eleventh hour change of plan was that Penny’s novel is set in winter time in a Canadian village; I was close to the border with Canada and the view outside my hotel room was equally wintry. I think you’ll agree that’s rather a tenuous connection.
But my lapse has been fleeting. I’m home now and back on the wagon. Amis going to have to wait a little while because I have an invitation to a party with Mrs Dalloway. And then it will time to dig around the shelves for an Irish author as part of Cathy’s Reading Ireland Month. I’m thinking of taking Molly Keane with me to that party.
You fall off a wagon, you get back on. That’s how wagons work. 😉 The TBR Triple Dog Dare is a big wagon with room for everyone, even people who need a special book for travel. By the way, it ends on April 1, not the end of April, so you can now count the weeks left on one hand, I think.
That’s a great plan, no reading of new books until April! I may try that when I get back home.
its much easier than I expected it to be, probably because it doesn’t stop me buying
I enjoy so much Louise Penny’s series, I’m working down the list, almost done with Bury Your Dead right now. they are all so good! and all in audio for me, fantastic narrator so far – I know he died and had to be replaced, unfortunately
It simply doesn’t count, you were in international airspace so rules don’t apply 😉 Also you’re right it’s very important to have a really good book for travelling, otherwise it’s depressing.
Nice one! I’ll have to try that approach more often. Maybe I can claim that my commute to work constitutes crossing borders so normal rules don’t apply either
Of course! I’m sure you have to cross city/borough/county borders 🙂
One little slip, no big deal. I think you are doing incredibly well. Me, I would have said, oh to heck with it and given up on the whole challenge/project right then and there 🙂
Shush you, there is still two months to go yet so I will not claim victory yet
Are you sure you’re back on the wagon? My experience is that if I read one novel from a series I suddenly find an urgent need to read at least one more if not two or…….
I devised a cunning plan to avoid that exact situation. Although I bought number 3 in the series I sent it home via internal mail. So it’s somewhere mid Atlantic for a week or so and this firmly out of my reach…..
Oh well done! We love cunning plans in this household. The Bears are great Baldrick fans.
Good luck getting back on that wagon. Such challenges are always very difficult for me.
I failed at one last year because it involved making a list of books to read over the next 12 mo the. I Managed 7 but didn’t have as much enthusiasm for the remaining titles.
This made me laugh, not because you’ve fallen off the wagon, but because if you’d written this a week ago I would have had no idea who Louise Penny was! But, hubby and I were away last week with two other couples, among whom was a keen Louise Penny reader. I love synchronicities like this!
As for falling off the wagon, well, shame on you 😉
So now you know who she is are you tempted to read her?
Slightly … Crime is not really my thing unless there’s a pressing reason to read it but I am going to ask a keen crime reading friend whether she’s read her.
Must say that it’s on plane trips that I really pay homage to my Kindle – hundreds of books to choose from, weighs nothing…
Well I did have my e reader with me too, just in case….
I’m sure Louise Penny would be pleased you fell off the wagon! I think it’s good to reach for the book you need at the moment or time.
Maybe I should tell her, she could use it as her marketing message. Read me and you too will fall off the wagon. Nobody will understand it but they will be intrigued
I do love how us book lovers come up with the most imaginative of excuses to justify our book choosing/buying… 10 for effort!!
Oh good, I am so glad to get at least one gold star today.
I’m completely with you – if you’re travelling the book has to be *just* right! 🙂
Oh the hours I spend agonising on which books to take…..
The book for a flight is such an important decision. Good for you for being flexible with your goals so you could accommodate a book that fit the mood and place.
The odd thing Joy is that it’s u usual for me to choose a book purely on mood…
Have you read any Molly Keane?
No, I have that pleasure awaiting me Guy.