Catching Up On Reading

So I'm not what you would call an 'avid' reader, though I suppose it's fairly relative. I read a lot more than some people, perhaps more than a lot of people, but I know quite a few people who really read a lot. In that sense I suppose I'm not what you would call "well read", but I do at the very least try and read a little before bed each night. I suppose part of it is just to tire out my eyes, in some sort of (often futile) attempt to wear myself out and help me fall asleep quicker. And of course it depends on the level and complexity of the writing as to how much I'll get through on any given night. Not to mention how tired I already am when I start reading. I might tire out after only a couple of pages of something that is rather wordy and intricate, or I might get through a dozen pages or more of something simple and straightforward.

This year I tried something new, for me. I started keeping a log of what I've read. I thought it would be interesting to see, at the end of the year, just how much I got through. It's not a particularly long list, but I like to think it is a least a little varied, in style and thematic material if nothing else. I mostly read fiction, often mixing juvenile books with more adult themed ones. And of course my favorite author is Kurt Vonnegut Jr., so he's definitely going to show up prominently in any list of books I read. I also find that I tend to like dystopian novels. Kind of gravitate towards them. That and satire, I suppose, are two biggies on my hit list. But in any case, here's what I've read (thus far) in 2019:

Life of Pi, by Yann Martel
The Fault in Our Stars, by John Green
All the Light We Cannot See, by Anthony Doerr
The Handmaid's Tale, by Margaret Atwood
To A God Unknown, by John Steinbeck
Jailbird, by Kurt Vonnegut
Catch 22, by Joseph Heller
Cat's Cradle, by Kurt Vonnegut

That's it, 8 books. Not quite one per month. I know it's not a lot in quatity, but in this day and age with our complex lives absorbing up so much of our time, it's often tough to make the time to just sit down and read. Or perhaps I'm just lazy, I don't know. Maybe this winter I will find some more time to read. I certainly have bought more books this year than I've read. If one were to view my personal library at home, you'd probably think I was much more of a bookworm than I actually am. Well, maybe I'll get there. At the least, I should start catching up on reading those that I've bought but have done nothing more with than to ceremoniously add them to my collection. Well, I still have 7 weeks left in the year after all...