On wanderlust and intellectual chain-smoking
The month of May has transitioned into the early days of June and I have not posted for awhile. I spent the last weeks of May otherwise engaged, aka. studying for exams. Now that the exams are done (and successfully passed), I can pick up MontanaWriter again.
June has come to the North Country warm and green… and I am feeling again the need to be west of here where vistas are wide and not blocked by tunnels of trees. Western wanderlust is upon me.
Books that have sat on my coffee table and kindle are being picked up again:
- PrairyErth, by William Least-Heat Moon
- Making Certain it Goes on, by Richard Hugo
- Maps and Legends, by Michael Chabon
- The Brave Cowboy, by Edward Abbey
- The Desperado, by Clifton Adams
- The Path to Rome, Hilaire Belloc
- Pulp Fly, Volume One
The list goes on and on…. the ever-present piles of just-started, half-finished, never-to-be-finished books that have marked my years, stacked-up in jumbled heaps like cairns strewn across the barren wilderness of my intellectual and artistic life.
It is so easy to begin a book… but so difficult to finish one. And when you do find a good book, one good enough to finish, it only leads you to rush into other books.
One of the reasons that I have not done as many book reviews at MontanaWriter as I would like is that I am always moving between so many books at the same time. I am always hurrying from one unfinished book to the next unfinished book or from one completed one to the next three I would like to start…. like intellectual chain-smoking.
I have no doubt that my restless reading habits are merely an intellectual manifestation of wanderlust. I roam across literary genres and periods, across academic subjects and fields like an aimless hitchhiker. I have no idea where I am going… as long as it is someplace over the horizon… as long as it is someplace I have never been.
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Well put. Congrats on completing the exams to your satisfaction…My own reading is more purpose-driven (emphasis on driven), and it keeps me finishing books. I have no more than 2 books going at the same time. Could be that I’m just anal.
Those of us who are regular followers of Buddies in the Saddle are glad you are… purpose driven, Ron. We enjoy and rely on your reviews.
As long as I can remember I have juggled multiple books. On my coffee table 8 books and my Kindle. On the table next to my bed, 5 books and an iPod touch with the Kindle app. and Wattpad app. In my backpack two books. In my car, 3. On my iPhone, the Kindle app., Wattpad, iBook, Complete Shakespeare App., a Bible app., a Short-Story app and a number more.