The Sunday Salon: A hopefully good reading year

I've had a great reading week. I finished Calling Dr. Laura early in the week and Anatomy of a Disappearance mid-week. I'm also almost done with Stuff: Compulsive Hoarding and the Meaning of Things, which is turning out to be one of the best research-oriented nonfiction books I've read lately. Yesterday, I figured I could start another book, Family by J. California Cooper, and before I knew it, I was done with that book as well.

From my excitement, you can probably guess that this doesn't happen often. I think this past week being a snow week helped - we had to skip the gym (not cool), our dinners have been mostly soup (yum), there was nothing of importance trying to get my attention (yay), and so books got read. And they have all been good books. Family was beautiful to read, though not as striking as several other books I've read on slavery by African American authors. Anatomy of a Disappearance was mostly poetic to read, but the plot wasn't too impressive - that was okay, the writing made up for the plot. I have read much better graphic memoirs than Calling Dr. Laura, but it was still refreshing to see a different take on this medium. And Stuff has made me realize that I am not a hoarder, no matter how many magazines I tend to pile in my house or how disarrayed my desk can be.

By this time last year, I had finished only 5 books. The year before (one of my better reading years in quality and quantity), it was 8 books. Two years prior, it was again 5. Both the years when I had read only 5 by February, I didn't read more than 45 books overall. Not a bad count, but I do miss the years when I read so much that I didn't miss reading. I always had something that occupied my attention on the poor reading years - family troubles, wedding year, other stuff. This year is going to be the biggest game-changer of all for sure (arrival of a baby) but starting the year off with a lot of reading may help me bounce back sooner and easier? I don't know. I would love to be able to read even fluff books after July. And maybe I just need to make an easy-reads TBR list for the second half of the year.

I'm not sure what to read next. Maybe The Cellist of Sarajevo or This One Summer. Or maybe I'll spend the day cataloging my ebooks - I have no idea what all I own in ebook format and it would be nice to get them listed somewhere, and then use IFTTT to automatically add newly purchased books to the same list. Or maybe I should clear my desk. (I always wait for a weekend to do this, but once the weekend rolls around, it feels almost silly to do any chore.)

Can I say how thrilled I am to see a 48 degree high predicted for today? After ridiculously freezing temperatures this past week - our town broke all its previous records for low temperatures with a -11 degrees on Friday (That's Fahrenheit) -  I would like not to have to squish my face into my jacket to cower from the cold winds whenever I had to step outside. After living in a winter wonderland for a week - it was too cold for any of the snow to melt - some of the snow has started saying goodbye today. Now that I got my snow fix for the year, I am more than ready to welcome Spring.