The Bitter Buffalo

Faithful Bitter Buffalo visitors may recall a list I assembled of the books I planned to read over the summer. I called that list "insanely ambitious" because I knew there was little likelihood I'd finish more than one or two of the books on it, ever. As much as I enjoy reading, I just wasn't devoting much of my time to it and, unlike my lovely wife, I can't juggle three or four books simultaneously. I also have a hard time picking a book up, reading a page, then putting it down again. To really enjoy a book, I need long, uninterrupted stretches of time in which to lose myself in it, and enough time to get to a good stopping point when the time comes to put it down.

Really, in order for me to enjoy books and pleasure reading in general, I need to be spending a lot of time on airplanes.

Well, beginning sometime last November I started flying to work again. Which means, of course, that I have started reading again. And though I didn't really make much of a dent in my list over the summer, I have managed to knock down some of the books on my list in recent weeks. Among them:

• Robert J. Sawyer - Humans
• Robert J. Sawyer - Hybrids
• Stephen Baxter - Manifold: Space
• Stephen Baxter - Manifold: Time
• H.G. Bissinger - Friday Night Lights
• Jeffrey Eugenides - Middlesex
• Jasper Fforde - The Eyre Affair

One of my "list" books (I think it was Hybrids), I finished when I was out of town, so I picked up the following book at the bookstore and gulped it down my last night there and on the plane the next day:

• Elizabeth Moon - The Speed of Dark

So, eight books in two and a half months. Not too bad. At this rate, I might make quite a dent in my list by the end of next summer.

Reviews of the books I've read so far will be forthcoming in the next few days. Here's a preview: there are no real stinkers among them, but some of the stuff (Baxter in particular) is pretty genre-specific. Nonetheless, if you read this blog regularly, and I know you, I think it's safe to say there is at least one selection on this list that you will absolutely love. Even you, mom.