I am not an avid reader. I find it tedious and I struggle to sit in front of a book without falling asleep. Perhaps its because I’m a cinephile. That’s not to say I’m iliterate either: I read more newspapers and magazines than most of the “readers” I know. Still, I feel like I have a chip on my shoulder intellectually because I am a part-time reader. I am also a bit skeptical also that someone who reads a dozen chick-lit novels a year is more “well-read than me.

Perhaps the other reason I don’t read much is that there isn’t much motivation. The handful of books I read for school or pleasure a year is surpsingly enough to make me “well read”. Last fall I stopped in a trendy bookstore in Washington DC (it was trendy because they were playing AC/DC and had a bar in the back) and I had read half the books on their featured table. I guess there’s only a handful of books every year that are important enough and I am hitting them all.

Summer is the exception to the rule. I read a lot during the summer since I used to have a job that paid me to sit around and read. These days I am not paid to read, but I have so little to do outside of work that I decided to pick up the habit again. So far I am almost done Indecision after 36 hours of having it. I also bought Assassination Vacation and The Lexus and the Olive Tree, which I thought would be plenty for the summer. At the rate I am going, however, they might not last more than a week or two. It’s hard to argue with reading a book when faced with the umpteenth showing of Jurassic Park on TV.

Update: I just finished Indecision and it ended badly. Its a tad annoying getting preached to at the end of a story, but its even worse when the sermon has nothing to do with the 200 or so pages you read before.