Saturday, February 7, 2015

Not Exactly Progress

To my chagrin I must report that for some reason I haven't been getting down to any genuinely sustained serious reading of late. It's true that I've cleared the various magazines around the house - an issue of Prog, a Philosophy Now from September/October 2014, and the late December issue of The New York Review of Books, which means I can now purchase the latest editions in good conscience - but I've been getting almost nowhere with my on-going poetry collection, David Harsent's Night, and I've even been struggling to get on with Peter Dickinson's The Devil's Children, which is basically a short novel for kids, despite the fact it's rather well written and a pretty good read. (Mind you, I read half of it today and do intend to complete it on the morrow.)

Most embarrassing of all, I realised to my delight a couple of weeks ago that I'd kept Peter Mansfield's The Arabs on my shelves here rather than moving it to Maison KL as I felt a sudden keenness to refresh my (pitiful) knowledge of the Middle East following the death of King Abdullah of Saudi Arabia, and firmly expected to read big chunks immediately, since when I've managed about five pages. Oh hum. I could blame work I suppose, but I could and should blame my own laziness and lack of the necessary oomph, the vital vim.

No comments: