(Sort of) Recent Reading

It's been awhile since I've reported on what I've been up to, bookwise. That's mostly because I've kind of slowed down. So instead of knocking off three or four books a week, I'm down to more like, say, three books in two weeks. And it's harder to stretch these things out if I don't have that many titles. However, since it's been a few months, I think I can probably use some of the backlog.

Master and Commander, by Patrick O'Brian

I've actually read the first six books in this series, and I'm kind of stalled out as I try to assault the seventh (The Fortune of War). I guess instead of "stalled out" that should be "becalmed" to keep with the nautical theme. Anyway, at this point I have no idea why they claim that the movie Master and Commander: The Far Side of the World is based partly on the first book and partly on the tenth. There's hardly anything in the first book that made it into the movie, and pretty much all the books have stuff that snuck in.

The books are good clean historical fun, but they kind of suffer from a lack of narrative tension. It doesn't really feel like each book has its own plot. The book starts, a bunch of stuff happens, and then the next book starts. There are events that happen within each book, but they're all sort of running together for me at this point. And there are many more books to read, so although I'm enjoying the series, it's taking me forever.

The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy, by Douglas Adams

Yes, obviously, I've read this before. But not for awhile. My editions (I'm talking about the whole series) were old ripped-up paperbacks and when I moved, I got rid of them. I trimmed my books down a bit, and I just kept the Dirk Gently books. And possibly The Salmon of Doubt. My logic was that I've read the Hitchhikers Guide books so often, I didn't really need them anymore.

But after awhile, I started to regret that. I mean, I'd had the first book for a long time; I bought it in an airport bookstore decades ago and then had to wait anxiously for the second book to be published. I've always been pleased with myself that I discovered the books for myself on a random whim instead of getting the word from someone else. So the other day, I picked up one of the nicer editions of the complete series. It's the classy leatherbound one, and it looks great on a bookcase.

The first book was kind of hard going, which surprised me. I've seen the TV series often enough that I had trouble reading the words without hearing the actors. And then there's the problem that since I first read it, I've heard a million people quoting it. Okay, yes, some of them were me, but it still feels pretty geeky. Luckily, though, by the time I got to the second book, the echoes of the TV show, the radio show, and the fans had subsided, and I was alone with the words. And the words are still really funny.

Right now, I've just moved into So Long, and Thanks for All the Fish, which is traditionally where it starts getting worse. But it's better than I remember it, probably because this time I didn't have to sit around for years waiting anxiously for Adams to finish writing it.

I've been reading other books too, but I think I'm going to space them out a bit to create the illusion of a steady stream of reading. The reality is that I'll read eight books in one week and then nothing the next, but that doesn't make for very good television.