I suspect this is a problem shared by some of you to a greater or lesser degree. For others this is something that probably sounds quite ridiculous.
I cannot stop starting books.
It didn’t used to be like this. And once it started there have certainly been years where it was not so bad. But this year…
Well, this year it is embarrassing. It would be one thing if I could say this list I am about to present (which I would guess is not completely accurate based on my sometimes selective memory) is filled with books I laid aside because they just weren’t doing anything for me.
Not the case. Any books I have laid aside this year because of an inability to connect with it are not included on this list in large part because it is possible in the onslaught of acquiring more books that I’ll never get back to them. Often if I don’t connect I am giving away or selling these books to make room.
No, these are all books that I have either not read enough of to make a determination (i.e. read a few pages when I first bought it), which is a very small number, or was really enjoying but got distracted by the next shiny object placed in front of my eyes (in other words, another book).
After a promising first couple of months the year has been feast or famine in the reading department. That isn’t to say it has been a bad year. We are two months away from Year in Review posts and I’m already excited about sharing my memorable book-related experiences of 2013. And there are still two months left in the year, two months in which I’m sure to be able to make a (small) dent in these partially read books.
I near the halfway point in each of these books, stories that I started in the early part of 2013. I recently purchased the second of Asher’s trilogy and reviewed a short story set in this universe so his is certainly one I need to get back to. I read a lot of positive things about The Explorer which is why I picked it up in the first place.
Jagannath came to my attention when I was picking out favorite cover images for 2013, and right about that time it was getting mad praise all over the place. I immediately bought this for the Kindle and tore through it, enjoying Tidbeck’s quirky stories all the way. Turns out due to a glitch is where the Kindle first opened the book I only thought I was finished when I reached the end, only to find out come review time that I had the first half of the book to read. Doh!
I’m especially embarrassed that I haven’t finished the Charles de Lint book, a novel I was reading with Kailana and one I took along to Spectrum Fantastic Art Live 2 to be signed by Charles Vess.
The Best of All Possible Worlds came to my attention initially because of the excellent Coode Street Podcast and I have to tell you that it was living up to its potential. Why I never finished it at the time remains a mystery. Although I’m near 50% done with the book this is one of the few which, when I get back to it, I will probably start with fresh because it is a book with a unique feel and I would like to re-experience it in its entirety. (UPDATE: Finished 11/29/13)
For years I have been wanting to read the Patricia Briggs novels because I am hugely enamored of the illustration of Dan Dos Santos. I recently started this one and am enjoying it thus far.
The fourth book in the Valor series barely qualifies for this list as it is one of a handful of books I have at work on my in-case-of-emergency-urge-to-read-on-break shelf and I cracked into it the other day over lunch when I forgot to bring one of the many novels I am actually well into. I have read the previous three books around this time of year so it is not surprising that I’ve been hankering for a Torrin Kerr adventure.
Given that I have three books still to read in the Niven/Lerner Ringworld series it was probably a mistake to pick up the first of another Niven collaborative series, but I’ve been staring at this book a long time and the return of cool fall weather stirred up the science fiction urges and, well, you know how it goes…
I finished Caliban’s War by James S.A. Corey earlier this year and loved it. Not surprising that on release day I picked up the third book in the Expanse series (in paper and ebook copy). It is rare that I read back to back novels in any series and so it was probably a mistake to start this one right away.
I’m obviously easily influenced by others (here I go, blame-shifting! 🙂 ). Read a positive review of The Incrementalists and went straight out and bought it and started reading it. I’m a third of the way through this very recent purchase.
The Historian was the group read for this year’s R.eaders I.mbibing P.eril. I was proud of myself for FINALLY picking it up. Nearly a third of the way through. Really liking it. Having a hard time reading anything but science fiction at the moment as that is where my desires currently lie.
I finished First Shift earlier this year–Excellent! And Second Shift (for the half that I’ve read) is more of the same Hugh Howey goodness I have become accustomed to. There are several people I have gotten turned on to Hugh Howey who have surpassed me and actually finished all these. *hangs head in shame*
I had hoped to get caught up with Cherie Priest’s Clockwork Century books in time for this November’s release of Fiddlehead. Ah, the best laid plans…
I read Shades of Milk and Honey aloud to Mary last year and we both enjoyed it. I started reading Glamour in Glass to her but ended up laying it aside through no fault of its own…even when reading aloud to Mary I sometimes get distracted by other books I want to read to her. Witness the next two selections:
I started reading Snuff aloud to Mary in the early summer as I was in the mood for us to share something funny. With autumn approaching that shifted to The Lord of the Rings trilogy. She has never read them and loves the films. This one we have been faithfully reading, albeit slowly, for the past month. Less than a hundred pages left. Very fun to be revisiting Middle-earth and taking along my darling who has not visited Tolkien’s original creation.
This past summer I took my Kindle along on a weekend trip to visit Mary’s cousins with the plan to pick one of the books in my library to start. I read the first Honor Harrington book last year and it was fantastic. The second is proving to be a strong follow-up.
I don’t read many Star Wars books largely because, outside of Zahn’s work, I’m not thrilled with what I read about the expanded universe. Lately authors have been going back to tell stories set during the time period of the original trilogy and those excite me. I picked up Razor’s Edge on release day recently and couldn’t resist sampling a chapter when I got home that night. (Update: Finished 11/30/13)
And finally, these are the two books I am faithfully reading now and hope to finish BEFORE going back to any of the above (or, God-forbid, starting something new):
This Alien Shore is a book I picked up at the start of the year because a) I’ve long admired the Michael Whelan cover and b) C.S. Friedman is one of the authors I wanted to read for the Worlds Without End‘s Women of Genre Reading Challenge this year. Just recently picked it up, am 100 pages in, and am very pleased. It is the kind of multifaceted space opera I hoped it would be. (Update: Finished 11/27/13)
Ancillary Justice was a book I was determined to by the moment Orbit Books announced they were publishing a book with a new John Harris cover. How wonderful that Ann Leckie’s debut novel is also getting high praise. I started reading it recently and plan to continue alternating with the Friedman book, especially since Sword and Laser has this as their November book pick.
I’m sure there are many more I’ll remember the moment I hit “publish” on this post. There are certainly a number of genre magazines that I have only read partially. I cannot always get all the way through an issue for my weekly Short Fiction Friday posts on SF Signal and when I don’t it is rare, sadly, that I get back to these publications.
What is the hold up on inventing that time-halting machine?
So my question is, am I nuts? No, wait, I already know the answer to that question. The question is, does this behavior in any way resemble your habits? If not, feel free to poke fun and chastise as you see fit.
This is a problem I do not have. Since I do have lots of problems, I am eager to say… this is not one of them. On the other hand, I don’t think you have so much a problem as a lot of eagerness to experience new books and optimism. So that is not a bad thing.
I do have a problem of not being able to stop buying books… when I have way too many to finish this year or the next. Or the next.
Ha, I have that problem too, Tracy. Which if not obvious from all my years of confessing such is probably obvious reading between the lines in the post above. 🙂 Ah well, we are not alone.
There is definitely an eagerness there, and when I get in these moods to read a specific type of book, a specific genre, then I do find myself with a rush of conflicting impulses as to where to direct my attention. Gratefully I eventually settle down to one book and get lost in it, but I end up with a lot of half-begun adventures in the meantime.
So do these stay on the shelves, for another try (or two) later? A friend & I call this the “ripening process” – the book has to right for you, and if not now, maybe later. I do find myself doing the same thing, and unless the book has really lost me, I usually put it back on the shelves.
I keep my library fairly neat, so some go back on shelves and some stay on piles either on my bedside table or library table. However, knowing I am the way I am, when we redid this room last year to make a library I had my dad make a table to go between our recliners that has wheels. It pulls out to reveal shelves where Mary and I can keep the books we are planning to read next. Mostly these books are housed on those shelves.
Oh my gosh….this is me this last year. Albeit, not to extent of your list, but still an issue of far greater amount than I’ve experienced in the past. I have actually returned several library books unfinished not because I didn’t like the books but I became distracted by others. I’ve kept a list of those library books and the page I last read so that I can check them out again to finish. Then, I have a handful of books on my shelves just waiting to be picked back up again. I’ve no issues with putting a book aside when I am not digging the story, but I am slightly troubled by my ease of distraction from the books that I am really getting into. But whew…I am glad I am not alone with this affliction. By the way, I really like the idea of your library table. I’ve been greatly feeling the need for a table such as yours to house those books I want to return to along with my current books.
The library table was inspired by the fact that we always had actual books from the public library laying in piles in the bedroom and I wanted somewhere to store them that would look nicer. I also wanted a place to put stacks of books I pulled that I might want to read for a challenge, for example.
Speaking of the library, though I didn’t start and stop a bunch of library books this year, I did check out an inordinate amount of books that I never even cracked the cover.
I thought I was the only one with this problem. My nightstand has two piles of unfinished reads on it, and there is a third in my study. (And I’m not counting the ones at work).
Given that this isn’t the first year of my affliction, I’d hate to count the number of books that are unfinished that are also nicely shelved in various places all over the house. Makes me shudder to think on it! Now that you mention it I have more than one at work too!
I don’t have that problem (and you are reading some great books there…) although I’m not sure why as I stare longingly at my shelves all the time thinking, ‘I want to read that and I want to read *that*…’ and so on. My problem is that I buy books and then don’t read them. I go to the library instead and read *those* books. I know we need to use libraries or we’ll lose them but I feel like I’m taking it to extremes. Only a third of the books I’ve read so far this year have been my own. *Next* year I’m going to do a tbr mountain challenge and try to make it two thirds my own books, one third library. *Fingers crossed*
I too buy books and don’t read them. First and foremost it is a retail therapy problem. I love to buy books because I love books as physical objects. I also fall into the role of wanting to support authors I like so I want to buy the book during opening week as those sales are highly important to authors. Then there is the fact that I am also the kind of person who wants their books to be pristine, so I’m often wanting to buy a book right away when I have the ability to cull through the pile at the store to find the mind condition book. Sigh. I really need to set some mountain-moving reading goals for the coming year. I’ll cross my fingers for you as well.
I do this on occasion. Usually it happens when I start a book but then have other commitments, such as a blog tour review that has to be done on a certain day or just stuff with friends. I have a tendency to come back to them, mostly because I read in the bathtub, so whatever book I leave in the bathroom cabinet tends to get finished eventually.
I don’t often take baths, but once cold weather sets in I find myself craving a soak in the tub and a good read.
There aren’t any of these that I won’t finish (unless for some reason the novel takes a turn I don’t like or, in the case of those I’ve barely started, are particularly bad), but I need to try to get to them before adding another dozen partially read books to my pile.
Oh my, that’s a lot of books! I’m usually pretty faithful to the one book and audiobook of the moment. I only start another one under special circumstances, e.g. book being too big to carry in my bag, a book challenge deadline coming up that needs to be met, etc.
I admire you Alex. I was that person once, then I lost my book-loving mind!
And Mary gets to experience LotR by hearing it! I am jealous. I had The Hobbit read to me as a child (even though I don’t remember anything beyond that it actually happened), but never LotR. I hope you’re both enjoying the experience!
I only read one or two (or very possibly three) books at a time, though. My head doesn’t have room for more than that. Sometimes it strikes me as a wonderful thing to be in the middle of a lot of books. I tend to skip around mostly when I don’t have access to the book or if I’m finding it hard to pick up for any reason. I’ve moved Guy Gavriel Kay’s River of Stars to a long-term read project, even though I’m sort-of aiming to read it with a friend in a relatively short period of time due to her commitments with it, because I just… do not want to read it. I’ve started it. I enjoyed what I read. It’s every bit as beautiful as I expected and quite a bit easier to settle into. But if I finish it, I shall have to wait for the next book again (assuming, of course, that there’ll be one). Plus, it’s big and bulky and painful on my hands, so it’s not pleasant to hold.
But that’s not quite the situation you’re in of course. You’ve got some wonderful books you’re in the middle of and I do hope you can get back to them all and will continue to enjoy them! (I’ll be very curious to see what you think of Ann Leckie’s book as well. I recently added it to my TBR pile, and even though I know it’ll have to wait a while I’m looking forward to reading it!)
Good luck with the books! <3
We are having fun. This is my third time reading through the series and her first experiencing it so it is fun.
I grabbed River of Stars on Kindle when it came out because I read so much praise but haven’t cracked into it.
I understand the bulky book issue…it is why some books I’ve purchased on Kindle this year in addition to or in lieu of the paper book (which I hate doing) because it is too much of a pain to schlep around and try to hold a massive tome.
The first chapter of Leckie’s book sucked me right in, so that at least is promising.
I can imagine! I’m glad to hear you’re both having fun and I hope you’ll both enjoy the next two books whenever you read them. ^-^
Is River of Stars going to be your first brush with Guy Gavriel Kay or have you read some of his works before? I feel like I should know this, but alas I don’t.
*nods* Really don’t blame you. Big tomes can hurt a lot.
Yay! I take that as high praise from you and especially knowing all the other good books that it’s competing for your attention with. (I should be good and save it until next year, though, so I can try to join in with the Sci Fi Experience if you’re hosting it again.)
I haven’t read any of Kay’s work before. I listened to a handful of podcasts and read some interviews with him regarding the book and it sounded like an interesting place to start.
I will be hosting the Sci Fi Experience. I am shifting it back by one month and hosting it beginning Dec. 1 through the end of January. Very excited about it!
Oooooh. I hope you’ll find it as much of a treat as I do whenever you get around to it then! It’ll definitely be an interesting place to start, and hopefully an easier one than some of his older works. Even on a reread they take me about 200 pages to find my momentum.
:O I just saw when I backtracked on my RSS feeder to see which of your posts it said I’d missed! (I really had. I’m afraid I’m rubbish at keeping up with people consistently, never mind leaving them the intelligent comments they deserve.) It’ll be fun to focus on scifi for a change. I’ve got a couple of scifi novels lying around to read, but it’s not a genre I read in a lot. It’ll be very interesting to focus on scifi for a while, but it should be wonderful too. I always want to read more of it and hardly ever manage because fantasy is so very strongly my first love. *starts plotting her pool of options*
I’m terrible at keeping up with people myself, so you are not alone.
What? you buy more books than you can read?! Now that is and interesting problem………… one that way too many of us have! I will admit that once I begin a book I either read it all or if I set it aside it’s because it’s not grabbing me and I wind up not reading it at all.
..just one last thing..
I am extremely jealous that you read to Mary! ONCE, and only ONCE did my grandson read to me and I loved it so much! I would love someone to read to me (and discuss what was happening along the way)… wow! Lucky Mary!!!!
I can feel the sarcasm bleeding through the electrons! 🙂
I started reading to Mary when we were first married and I wanted her to read Dracula and knew she never would. So I read it to her, she loved it, and it is a tradition we’ve continued on over the years. I don’t read to her often, but we usually get through a couple of books a year, sometimes three or four if they aren’t too involved.
Yes! I actually wrote a post awhile back about my addiction to starting books, haha. I have a horrible grass is always greener syndrome when it comes to the next shiny book in the stack. I’ve been able to reign this impulse in with a fairly strict reading schedule currently, but we’ll see how long that lasts!
I think I remember reading that now that you mention it. Congrats on getting things under control for the time being. Hopefully those efforts will become ingrained habits and then you can teach the rest of us addicts how to do it. 🙂
I breathe a bit easier after reading this last confession of yours, Carl. I too have a 2013 stack of books staring at me longingly to come and finish! And I too can’t tell you why I began the journey and left the path. Oh well. I don’t feel so bad now knowing I have at least one brother in arms.
In high school I had a friend and we would spend the summers reading. We would go out and select the SF novels we wanted to read and I would read one and he the other. Then we would switch. Then we would spend a long night reviewing our books and ranking them. Maybe if you read the front half and I the back we could finish together!! Best to you and your new extended family!!!
Wow, that sounds like a fun way to spend summers! What great memories you must have. Maybe that half and half plan would work with us! 🙂 I’ve obviously got several already lined up that you could finish for me.
Thank you for the wishes, it is fun having a married daughter.
Yep I do this all the time. I’ve been giving myself “lectures” but I just don’t listen to reason. Currently, I’m reading five books and I forgot that I was reading Villette. I wish I could give you advice of how to stop, but I can’t. I do think it’s a good problem to have, though. Choices are good.
I don’t either, or else my “reason” is very flawed. I certainly would rather have this problem than many others, and I’m in good company which makes it even harder to think about quitting.
My problem is more that I can’t stop 1) buying books and 2) taking library books and adding them to my “To Be Read” shelf on the trolley.
But this week I’ve decided that I’m only allowed buy/add a book after every two books read. I’m not sure it’s going to work, but I’m going to try 🙂
(Ancillary Justice looks brilliant!)
I have those problems as well Fence. I was so grateful when the library’s software updated with a function where you could suspend holds yet they remain on your account list. It is a good way now for me to remember books I might want to read without the frustration of checking them out only to return them unread a few weeks later.
And I applaud your plan, you’ll have to let me know how it is going.
Pah, ya got nothin’, Anderson.
Still, I completely understand the dynamic here. You beat me by a day on this topic, because tomorrow (Wednesday) I’ll have a sillier post showing a stack of partially read books. I’m asking anyone who visits my blog in the next few days to post what I should read and finish next. Most votes dictates.
So Carl, Fence, Jeff, Deslily, Lynn, etc. come tell me what the heck to do!
My comment for you, Carl, is to finish the one you’re the furthest through as of now. Then read the one you know in your heart you most want to read, then read the one your second furthest through right now. And for heavens sake don’t start anything new (easy advice to give, not so easy to take).
If it were me choosing among these? I’d pick ANCILLARY JUSTICE or THIS ALIEN SHORE.
I had the feeling the you might be in this same boat and be far ahead of me. Lucky guess. 😉
I wasn’t super clear with my above post, but This Alien Shore and Ancillary Justice are the two I’m sticking with right now. I’m really into This Alien Shore and am not wanting to set it aside and despite that am committing to at least read few pages a day in Ancillary Justice so I can keep up with the read on the Goodreads forums.
Uh, that was supposed to say “a similar post”. Darn autocorrect thingie.
I despise auto correct.
I’m impressed! I dislike reading more than one book at a time, but don’t generally read more than one in a series at a time, so my problem is more with too many unfinished series lying around.
I would say that Jagannath should be an easy one to knock out. There’s probably only an hour or two of reading remaining for you there. This Alien Shore will take a bit, and Abaddon’s Gate is no slender volume either. Dream Park is a pretty brisk read though, so that’s one you could probably get through fairly quickly. I’m not familiar with most of the rest. (LOTR exempted, of course.)
Yes, the James S.A. Corey books are chunksters. I think when I read Jagannath I may re-read at least some of the stories that I’ve already read just to get a better remembrance for the review. Plus there were some fun stories there.
I have this problem too. I was going to say that this has been a good year for me: I’d only started The Woman in White and In Cold Blood without finishing them. But then I remembered that I had started Ellison’s The Land of Fear, and a book of Carl Sandburg’s letters, and I *still* haven’t finished Shadow Show… Oh, and The Kiss Murder… And…
My excuse this year (for this, my inability to get far on reading challenges, and my blown book-buying budget/books bought but not read) is that I’ve been reading for research purposes. Yeah, that’s it. Research. So, as long as I’m writing historical fiction, I’m covered. *cough*
Ha, that is what happened to me. I started a list and then kept remembering more and more books. And I’m sure there are others I’ll stumble across in the days ahead.
My excuse could be that all the short story reading I’m doing for SF Signal breaks up my reading week, I don’t get as many novels read, and thus am more easily distracted by the next new thing. But of course I didn’t have that excuse last year, or the year before that, or the year before that, or…
I’m half way through 4 books right now.
I can’t wait for school to end next week. I’m at 60% or 70% on Wool and have Dust waiting for me. I’m really looking forward to several months of reading and blogging. I miss them both!
Um, I mean Shift. I guess dust is part of Wool?
I’m confused.
The Shift trilogy are prequels to Wool (which should be read AFTER Wood for maximum impact). Dust is his newest. I haven’t read it but will.
That blog post to vote for what book I read next is now up. It’s here:
http://wp.me/pCGOo-2qK
Please drop by, bring your friends, vote. Thanks a bunch.
Thanks Richard, I’ve done my patriotic duty and voted. Head over there all!
Dude. You have more books than those you’ve started and not finished. Come on. You need to really come clean with us. 🙂
I started Calibans War this past weekend plus Steelheart by Brandon Sanderson. Both started off great. I need to buy an ebooks copy of the James SA Corey book because the large paperback is just too cumbersome. I’m also loving the sync feature for my Amazon app. I have been switching off reading on my cell phone and iPad recently with my ebooks and I just love the sync feature between the two of them keeping track automatically of where I’m at in a book between both devices. It’s just awesome.
In my lifetime certainly. I’m just thinking particularly about this year. I can’t recall any more right now but I’m sure you are correct.
I really need to snag a few of these on audio if I can as that would certainly help me get caught up to some degree.
Depends what you mean by ‘start’, anything less that 20 pages isn’t starting, that’s ‘seeing if you’re in the mood’. If I counted those I’d read the first few pages of before deciding the time wasn’t right I’d be up in double figures.
On the simultaneous reading front, I’ll generally have one fiction and one non-fiction on the go at any one time. Or one ‘difficult’ and one lighter work. Seems to work.
I also have a literal TBR pile. Anything that I’ve not finished doesn’t get shelved. In other news, I need more shelves.
I like the way you think, Kamo! I think there are a couple here that are less than 20 pages, but not too many.
I’ve been having a nonfiction itch of late, wanting to track down some new to me essay collections or some history books…but I’ll try to control myself at this point, no need to add more stuff!
kamo, I know roughly where you live and more or less what you do at work. There’s no way you can afford the kind of library space you’re clearly dreaming of!
Unless, of course, Japanese books are smaller and more efficient than their Western counterparts.
They are. They’re tiny. Multiple volumes for a single novel, but really, really small. I should stick up some pics for comparison. Have you seen any Japanese twitter feeds? 140 characters are a whole load more expressive when half of them are kanji. Also much more my level than an entire novel. One day…
On the subject of dreams, I could own half of Honshu and still not have enough money or space for my perfect library. *sigh*
So true, I feel the same way. But I’d like to have that much money and give it a try! 🙂
I completely understand your problem. I suffered from it long ago. Then I disciplined myself to read one book at a time. I have stacks of great books to read, but nothing gets started until the book I’m currently reading gets finished. The alternative is frustration and madness! And, by the way, congratulations on the Chiefs 9-0 undefeated record. The Bills hung with the Chiefs for a half, but turnovers killed their chances.
I certainly need to make more of an effort to do that George. Maybe start by giving myself a two-at-a-time-only rule to wean myself off.
Yes, I thought the Bills were going to pull off the win. Oddly enough the last time the Chiefs went 9-0, in 2003 I believe, the 9th win was against the Bills, here in KC. I was at the game.
We need a much better offense, but it is nice to see the defense do so well.
This is a problem I definitely cannot afford to develop…I forget character names and crucial plotpoints too quickly. I’d get hopelessly confused if I broke off midway through a book, and tried to come back to it later–especially if I had lots of other half-stories floating in my head too!
Don’t do it Cheryl! Its a long road down a dark path… 🙂
Carl, I love this post and that’s probably because it is a problem I share. I also have noticed more recently a tendency to stop reading books a third or half way through not to mention never completing the final book in a series – (I was just, literally, making a list of all my unfinished series). It’s interesting and I don’t know what – maybe I want the next shiny book, who knows. I certainly fall out of love with the idea of reading certain books if they’ve sat on a pile for too long.
Lynn 😀
It happens. Sometimes you start reading a book and as you go the sentences just don’t flow together but it’s more like torn pieces of thread somebody has stuck together, and you shake your head and wonder, why did I ever pick up this book? It’s not my thing. Then you put it down and start another. Maybe it’s not the right time. maybe it’s not the right book.
I remember starting John Irving’s “A Widow for One Year” and thinking no, I can’t go through with this, too slow, I need something faster. The second time it worked, and I was able to enjoy it.
eesh, I feel you…I hate to even attempt to figure out how many partially started/read books i’ve got laying around in the house or on the IPad! I CAN recommend the C.S. Friedman “This Alien Shore”, I always devour her books and that one’s a good ‘en!
I was proud of myself for finally getting all of the hardbacks up off the bedroom floor this weekend. Ended up being 4 stacks, averaging 3 ft high…now on top of a bookshelf in the bedroom. Now to figure out where to stick the burgeoning stacks of paperbacks! I think i’ve got 3 separate piles averaging 2 to 3 stacks per pile, averaging about 3 to 4 ft in height…until the cats knock them over. 😀
(you know it’s bad when you discover a slipcovered, limited edition, signed John Jude Palencar artbook…and you don’t remember where the heck it came from or when you acquired it!)
quite a few on here like Abaddon and Ganymede I’d like to read myself. So many books, so little time.
I feel your pain. I, too, have this problem. Always acquiring new books, but finding it hard to commit to any of them. There is always hope.