Reading

For the first time in many months I actually fell asleep over a book this morning. After reading over 250 pages in nearly one sitting. Almost like having my own mini read-a-thon.

And it was completely unplanned. My intent late Monday evening was to get back to work on the baby afghan fringe and the silk shawl, alternating through the night while watching videos on my netbook. But after dinner I spent time perusing the items Ed had brought home from the library that afternoon and checking my library account for the next due date. Which is when I discovered that I now have only one more week with that big stack of large print novels I checked out on my last physical visit to the library in January. To my great chagrin and frustration I had not yet begun a single one of the six.

Not only had I not started any of them after eight weeks with them, I had finished only one of the books whose due dates took precedence over them and that wasn't a novel and was only 100 pages. To compound the frustration, three of the library novels I had started since Christmas had had to go back with their bookmarks still some ways from the end. I hate that!

Now with only one week to go it seemed risky to even start one and all that built up anticipation every time I caught a glimpse of that stack of novels waiting their turn deflated like a popped balloon. I might as well just send them back now, I thought. In fact I might as well just send every one of the 30 odd library books back this week. Who am I kidding?

Well, except for the crochet books. They're actually getting serious use.

Yet before I was done on the library catalog I had ordered five more books. All screenplay writing manuals. Because an email coming in from Script Frenzy while I was checking my library account reminded me that there was less than half a month until kick off and I hadn't begun prep work for my script yet.

Shortly after that I discovered that I was going to have to do a restart before I could stream a video or download an update to my video player before I could play a DVD. My netbook had been pestering me to do other updates for several days so I decided it was a good time to do all these maintenance chores. So while I was waiting on downloads I brought that stack of large print novels onto my lap and began browsing in them trying to decide if it was worth starting even one with only a week to go.

Then before I realized what was happening I had turned more than ten pages in one of them and by the time I had competed all the downloads and restarts I had turned over fifty. By then I found I preferred to keep on turning the pages than to pick up my crochet hook or start a video.

Except for an hour or so hiatus to rest my eyes while playing around with the new features on my freshly downloaded update to Whizfolders Deluxe I kept on turning pages until my eyes began to cross and when I was forced to put it down around 8 AM my bookmark was on page 257. This evening I've turned another hundred pages and have reached the halfway mark. And I do believe I'm gong to keep on turning them.

The book? The Templar Legacy by Steve Berry. A mystery/thriller in the same genre as The Da Vinci Code. Complete escapist reading.

I'm not sure whether it is the light, escapism aspect or the large print that has made the difference. I just may find out though as I'm probably going to finish this one in time to have a good chance of finishing one of the other five and they all have significant literary qualities.