I've been meaning to return to regularly reading books for years now, but it took an extended power outage to make it happen. I used to read constantly, and from an early age; it used to be a self-defining trait. I got detention once for reading in class, hiding the book under my desk; I went to detention and just kept on reading. And I still have many of those books, in boxes in the attic.
I stopped reading books when I found the internet in the early 90s. I read more now than ever, but the books were sacrificed along the way. It goes without saying that I'm missing out on something. There are the old classics that I have now become unfamiliar with; I miss them like long-lost acquaintances. And I keep hearing about great new books, and I know I am missing something new.
I mostly read science fiction and fantasy. Sometimes I would venture into some other genre, but I always came back. For years a person could be fascinated with computers and work with them a lot and there was no major conflict between computer time and book time. Then the internet came, and demanded all of my time, and I gladly handed it over. I'm not sure I got much out of the trade.
I hoarded books - it didn't occur to me to get rid of any of them. Partially because I would re-read some of the classics over and over, but I even kept the bad ones I knew I wouldn't read again. Like some people, I believe a book once started must be finished. And having finished it, the book acquired some value it may not actually deserve (just because I read it), and so I kept it. I have a lot of books that should really be passed on.
It would be nice to have a bookshelf of just my favorites, and nothing else. But then there's ebooks - why accumulate dead trees when I can keep the bookshelf in my reader? It will probably be a hybrid for a while, and there are some books I'll probably take to the grave. The purpose of this blog is not just to document my quest to read good books again (and hopefully thereby actualize it), but to help me restore my bookshelf, virtual or otherwise, and decide what deserves to live there.
