Weekend of booksI

It's remarkably quiet around here considering that I'm in sole charge of a houseful of kids while my wife is off defending herself from the ravages of middle age by running in a road race far from here. There are all kinds of reasons for the quietness. The best one is that my oldest daughter has just taken my youngest daughter to her soccer game. The worst is that another one of my children is sick in bed. Another pretty bad one is that I've given my little son carte blanche on Club Penguin. He's so zoned out right now that he just looked up, at 2 in the afternoon, and asked if he could have breakfast (ok, I'm not that bad -- he's had breakfast but so long ago that he's forgotten).

Me? I've spent part of the morning wandering the house marvelling at the huge piles of laundry which seem to be everywhere. I can't believe how much laundry these kids produce, especially considering that I have nothing to do with the oldest 3 -- they do their own. The rest of my time I've spent reading this jeebly Ken Follett book the Pillars of the Earth, which is neither that good nor that bad. It rolls along in semi-predictable fashion, one learns a thing or two about how cathedrals are built and what life was like in the 12th century. But it's just ok. On the other hand, at 700 pages in, I'm reluctant to abandon ship, and really don't see much reason to. I did greet the news, however, that there's a recent sequel to this book which is even longer with some amount of chagrine. Not sure yet whether I'll take it on -- perhaps in the doldrums of August when it's just too hot for Camus.

I love books. Anyone who knows me even a little will know that. As my kids litter the house with wet bathings suits, underwear, odd socks, for me it is books. On average, I probably buy about 2-3 books/weeks and I read about 1/week. The perceptive reader will notice a lack of equilibrium here. At this pace, I'll never read everything I buy. So why buy? I think there are all kinds of reasons -- an act of faith that I'll be around long enough to read them, a commitment to myself to continue to learn, and also just because I like the look and feel of the darned things. They punctuate my life. In spite of the fact that I sometimes struggle to remember the birthdates of my kids, I can tell you within a month or two when I bought pretty much every one of the thousands of books I own.

I used to fret sometimes about the fact that there was a finite number of books I'd be able to read before my death. Now, with an optimistic lifespan estimate that I'm not going to make unless I make some lifestyle changes, that number sits right now at about 1500. I know there are more than 1500 books on my list right now, so unless I speed up the pace (which I can't right now and may never want to), there are some words that will never cross my eyes.

Lately, though, I've been able to put a positive spin on this thought. What it really means is that as long as I live I'm never going to run out of great stuff to read. And that doesn't even take into account the fact that I'll soon be able to re-read the best stuff with almost as much pleasure as the first time around.