In my 1001 Days project, among my goals are to read BBC’s Top 100 Reads. I’ve read 13 of the 100 since March 21st. However, I’ve read a handful more of those in the past, and so, they’re at the bottom of the list, to be read only if time and desire permits. After all, I read all the Harry Potter novels, and cute as they are, I don’t have a pressing desire to go back and reread them all immediately. Though maybe I will sometime between now and when my 1001 Days is up. I don’t know. But things I’ve already read are not on the “must do” list for me to complete this goal. Reasonable? I think so.

With the ones I’ve already read at some point added in, I’ve read 22 of 100. Not bad. 1/5th of the books done. Frankly, this goal is harder than I expected. My library is really… not quite so good. Even the libraries it’s allied with fail miserably when finding some of these - even though the books in question are not what I’d call incredibly rare reads.

I don’t really want to have to /buy/ all these books. Especially since some of them are books I’m really quite certain I will not enjoy so much that I’d like to own them.

I have found good luck in finding the old classics online, however, in libraries like Literature.org and Online-Literature.com - in fact, several of the reads mentioned were found online. However, I suspect that /these/ might be the reads more aptly found in my libraries. Nevertheless, it makes for a quick way to read a few chapters while at work.

For example, I’m currently working on Treasure Island (7 chapters in) and War and Peace (oh please, shoot me now) (somewhere in the midst of Book 3). Confession - I /hate/ war novels. I really do. Especially war novels like /this/. Flowery and dull as sin. To be honest, I feel that way about a great lot of ‘classics’. Flowery, and dull as sin. I guess I’m too conditioned to thrillers, myseteries, dark fantasy, and romance, eh?

A downside of this reading books online thing is that it’s not an actual /book/. I like books. I like to hold them and feel them and smell them, even. Reading online doesn’t quite do it for me in the same way. So I’m glad to also have a friend, A, who likes those flowery classics, and who has a good handful of them that I can thus borrow, read, and return without resorting to the library’s painfully plastic-ized hardcover, or to an online version of the same thing. So yay, A!

Anyway. That’s it for the book update.

4 Comments »

1. I can read articles or blogs online but can’t imagine trying to read a whole book. I too love the feel, texture, type face, notes, and heft of a book.

   I’m surprised that even in a consortium your library can’t find your titles. I’m 2 miles from the university which gets titles from all over the state and country, so it’s rare that I can’t get a title.

   Comment by Norma — December 2, 2006 @ 3:51 am

2. I’ve grown to be surprised at nothing when living in a town this small. *laugh* The nearest “city” is 60 miles away, and it’s only a town of 11,000 people. Most of the libraries in the consortium are in even smaller towns, like mine, which has a population of less than 1000. I will be asking about recieving books from libraries outside the network.

   Comment by Katia — December 2, 2006 @ 4:37 am

3. My wife and I are reading War and Peace. Me reading to her, actually. There are nights I can get into it and other nights I could just set the darn thing on fire and chuck it out the window. :)

   Comment by Uisce — December 2, 2006 @ 7:11 am

4. Oh yeah…. I love books, too!!!!! I recently ordered 35 online.

   Comment by Skittles — December 11, 2006 @ 8:46 am

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