If You Need Me, I'll Be Reading

I'm sort of in a bad way, book wise.  Between being on this committee to select a first year book for the college, my book group, the Prettier Than Napoleon book group, and the Christmas/birthday books I couldn't resist adding to my "read immediately" pile, I've got to finish the following books by the end of January:

Bleak House by Dickens (about 700 pages left, and although I like it I have no idea what's going on)
All Souls -- Michael Patrick MacDonald
The Shame of a Nation -- Jonathan Kozol
Mountains Beyond Mountains -- Tracy Kidder
Worlds Apart -- Cynthia Duncan
Blindness -- Jose Saramago
Bad Behavior -- Mary Gaitskill
Lost in Place -- Mark Salzman

I'd like to read the rest of Margot Livesay's books before I start taking a seminar from her in late January, but that probably won't happen.  I also probably won't get unstuck from where I've stalled in Sam Harris's book. 

How am I going to finish all of these books and also gorge myself on Sex and the City episodes on DVD??

Comments

[ML]

Here's what I think is a common practice among people on book committees and even professional book-reviewers: they don't necessarily read books all the way through. They read the table of contents, then perhaps a seminal or representative chapter, and then skim the rest.

[suzanne]

blindness is one of my absolute favorite books of all time. i absolutely LOVED IT.

[alkali]

Save Bad Behavior for when you have more time. You'll like it more.

[MT]

In the universities in literature you just read one or two and usually one of the essay options on the exam lets you write about it. The short answer questions are worth only so much. Worked for me at least.

[Ima Fake]

Rather than wasting time on all that Crit. Legal Studies nonsense, every law student should be made to read Dickens. "Suffer any wrong that can be done you rather than come here."

[anon]

mountains beyond mountains is one of the best books out there...all the way through. jonathan kozol is also phenomenal. haven't read shame of a nation yet, but have read several of his earlier works. he makes you wonder how we all sleep at night.