Bibliophilia: A Dangerous Disease

For me, summer is inextricably linked to reading. As a kid, I took part in the library's summer reading program--always going way over the required numbers to get the prizes (exciting things like bookmarks). Then in junior high and high school there was summer reading. I was one of the nerds who read all the books on the list when they said to choose one.

And summer remains for me a time to tackle reading projects, and I'm definitely a sucker for classic literature. Sometimes, I go for the hard books, the kind you can only slog through when you have the time. For example, last summer I read Dostoevsky's "The Brothers Karamozov," a book that is, I swear, longer than "War and Peace." Other summers, I choose to go with fluffier works, appropriate beach or pool-side reading, like "Bridget Jones' Diary."

Having moved back to Davis, this year I had the chance to organize my book collection, and I pulled out several books that I've purchased but never gotten around to reading. I have a very large pile of books to read now, and I really don't think I should buy another book until I get through all of them.

I just finished George Eliot's "Adam Bede," which was okay, but I didn't like it as well as some of her other works (ie. her masterpiece, "Middlemarch.") In the past couple of days, I read "The Chosen," by Chaim Potok. This book rocked, and I want to read more by him (too bad about my book buying ban).

In my reading pile, I have a couple of Dicken's novels ("Our Mutual Friend" and "Martin Chuzzlewit"), "The Beautiful and the Damned" by F. Scott Fitzgerald, George Orwell's "Burmese Days," "Life of Pi" by Yann Martel, Anne Diamant's "The Red Tent," "The Long Loneliness" by Dorothy Day, and another George Eliot work, "The Mill on the Floss."

Anyhow, summer's coming to a close, and I wonder how many of my books I'll be able to fit in before law school applications completely distract me. There are so many wonderful books to read, and so little time.