Before the Readathon
Only one box remains, a small one full of my candles. It rests in the corner, waiting for me to get to it, but I have other plans: I’m reading A Christmas Carol for the first time.
In fact, I’ve never even read Charles Dickens before, though David Copperfield has been on my list for over a year. Even as I write this, Fable and Bijou are cuddled together, grooming each other, and I have just spent 99 cents on A Christmas Carol. I wish it were foggy or rainy or snowy, but the day is unfolding just how it is meant to. Last night, I was at my aunt and uncle’s house feasting on enchiladas; tonight, I go to my cousin’s to see everyone. Between now and then and this weekend, I’ll be reading. I have to finish Howl’s Moving Castle and I Who Have Never Known Men.
A few days ago, I watched the stop-motion animation Christmas videos that I loved so much as a child. I felt young again as I mouthed the words to the songs that I haven’t heard in years. I love this time of year, the way winter is graceful and soft. Even though we’ve had an unseasonably warm time this year, I love the way the light looks. I am going to take advantage and sit on my new sofa (Thanks, Kailee and Jared) with the cats and read.
I’m stretching this readathon over more days than usual, so I also intend to get through an Orhan Pamuk book that I have yet to read, some nonfiction about Gothic literature, and She Who Became the Sun.
I didn’t read much this year — I found life with work to be a bit unwieldy. But I will be setting my goals for the new year at sixty books. I intend to read The Book of Disquiet in Portuguese and finish all of Pamuk’s backlist. I will read my mom’s favorite books and write about them. I have so much love for literature that it is bursting at the seams. The thing is, I know I am not guaranteed to make it from one year to the next, to the books I want to read. I want to read while I am alive because it is what in part makes me alive.
Thus this brief missive on what I have in store for the next few days. As always, happy reading.
