The Reading Challenge

Books are an addiction. Admittedly, I find perverse comfort in simply being surrounded by them, each one covered snugly in plastic and lined up neatly in the shelves. But more than that, I'm wont to read ravenously, insatiably. Sometimes, though only temporarily to restore some semblance of sanity and domestic peace, I willfully wean myself off reading especially after a rapid succession of novels, because the activity is all-consuming and so enthralling that it renders me emotionally incontinent. My moods during these rabid phases are ordained by what I'm currently reading-- irritable when the characterization is shoddy, giggly when the dialogue is witty, relaxed when the pace is leisurely, and ebullient when the writing is brilliant. Changes in domicile are largely due to one author or another.

It is for this reason that I feel I cannot write an acceptable book review. I am too neurotic. The best I can do is offer my opinion on whether I liked a book or not, because reading is such pure personal pleasure that it is impossible for me to be unemotional about it, or at least write with a modicum of objectivity.

But I will write some, in spite of.

I have started 2010 in the time-honoured tradition of making a new year's resolution I'm bound to break anyway. I accepted a challenge to read works by authors whose last names represent each letter of the alphabet. This is not a doomsday prophesy as much as it is an admission of stubborn pride. I am viscerally averse to being told what to do, and in this case, what to read, by virtue of the authors' last names. However, I must confess to something of a taste for challenge. And to help me keep track of my progress, I will try to blog about the books I've read. Loosely, for purposes of classification, to write book reviews.

Hopefully, I don't get sidetracked and rearrange the alphabet along the way.