This year I'm going to read 200 books. This is my new Project. 2011's Project was to gestate, bear, and maintain in general health a baby. 2010's Project was to write a novel about dystopian, demon-invaded New England. But for 2012 I want to read 200 books. I plan to do this while also keeping my house more or less running and my one-year-old more or less tended. Luckily I have long years of book-related multi-tasking experience from which to draw.
Things I Have Done While Reading a Book
- practiced the piano
- shaved my legs
- Pinterest
- talked on the phone (but not with you, I swear)
- folded laundry
- cooked bolognese sauce
- eaten bolognese sauce
- applied mascara
- pushed a baby-filled stroller
- jumped on a trampoline
- pushed a stroller on a trampoline
- no, I made that last one up
- scrubbed a bathtub
- camped with Bedouin in the Syrian desert
- vacuumed
The Kindle makes much of my multi-tasking simpler. I pity Younger Me and her unwieldy tree-corpse books. (Pro tip: a tube of toothpaste is ideal for keeping a book open while hands are occupied. It's small enough to leave most of the page readable, and smooshy enough to allow customized weight distribution across the pages. This has helped me through many a blow-dry.) But how did so many parents survive infant-rearing before e-readers? They must've had freakishly strong one-handed grips. Or else their sleeping/breast-feeding/fussy babes would've been constantly peppered with falling paperbacks. This only happened once or twice to my startled baby, and if I hadn't been Kindling, his adorable little nose might no longer be so adorable.
But I think outfitted with both Kindle and low standards of housekeeping, I miiiight be able to make it through 200 books this year. At any event I'm going to try. I'll recap the books I read here, on my poor neglected blog. Come join the party.
