What I’ve been reading this week.

I’m still in the process of cementing a schedule for this blog, but one of the things I do want to consistently include is a weekly recap of what I’ve been reading. I think this will let me better cement my thoughts about my books, and you guys are a captive audience anyway and are subject to my whims and fancy. I’m thinking Saturday is a good day for this, mostly because today is Saturday and it seemed like a good idea today. This is how most of my ideas work, actually. I’ll try and keep it spoiler free as best I can.

The Wind-Up Bird Chronicle – Haruki Murakami (pg. 56/607)

Not the easiest author to read, but still consistently one of my favorites. Haruki Murakami’s style is very surreal, and can be a lot to unpack sometimes. Even though The Wind-Up Bird Chronicle is one of his better known works (and highly rated), it’s taken me several years to finally sit down and read it. I’m not very far in, but I’ve enjoyed what I’ve read so far. I’ve never been good at deep diving into what an author really means and tracking down each obscure reference, so a lot of my experience with Murakami is at face value. Nevertheless, his descriptions and writing style of even the most mundane actions never fail to pull me in and let me live life alongside the main character. It’s not the most action-oriented book ever (so far?), but I’m still enjoying it.

The Count of Monte Cristo – Alexandre Dumas (pg. 52/1276(!!!))

The longest book I’ve ever sat down to read, by quite a few hundred pages (I think the longest up ’til now was Brent Weeks’ The Burning White at 992). It’s always been one of those books I felt like I should read but never had the time to. Luckily for me, my friends at the Book Lover’s Club Discord server started a buddy read of this doorstop of a book this month, with the intent of us all finishing it by the end of June. I remain cautiously optimistic that I’ll be able to meet this deadline.

So far not a lot has been going on in the book, but I’m only 52 pages in (that’s 4% for anyone keeping track at home). I’ve just been introduced to a lot of the main players, the plot has been set up by the antagonists, and partially executed. I look forward to seeing where “The Count” comes in, what/where “Monte Cristo” is (other than a sandwich), and how our protagonist handles things. I know very little specifics about the plot, so I’m going in mostly blind.

Refuse to Choose! – Barbara Sher (83%)

I made a blog post about this book specifically earlier this week so I’ll keep this brief-ish. I’ve read a lot since even the post I made, and have come away with a lot of different noteworthy realizations and practices that will maybe help going forward. I don’t really know what the end goal of this is, since I have a career goal I’m excited about and a tolerant husband who lets me indulge most of my whims, but having some additional organizational tools in my arsenal might help going forward.

In addition to the realization that I’m a “scanner”, the book also drilled down and explored the different types of “scanners” and how they tick. I’m a bit of a Sybil (major clutter problem, pulled in a million different project directions at once and act on none of them, afraid I’ll never complete anything), a Jack-of-all-Trades (good at a lot of things I try but never master any, wish I had a passion in just one thing), and a Wanderer (interested in unrelated activities/knowledge for no reason, intrigued by things other people find boring, lack direction). From these chapters, I also started creating a OneNote board outlining all the different projects I’d like to work on, and some information about each of them. I also split apart “work” projects from “play” projects because I felt like the distinction was necessary. One of the quotes the author related from someone she interviewed really hit home especially hard:

“I sat in the middle of all the things I’d started and dropped, and they seemed like a worthless waste of time.”

Barbara Sher, “Refuse to Choose!” pg. 37

This is a deep fear of mine. I’ve never really wanted fame, fortune, or a ton of recognition for anything I do, but I do desperately want to matter. I want to leave behind something that someone else finds value in, even if it’s just a small project at work (or a vanity blog on the internet, apparently). I have started so many projects that I’ve just dropped for no reason other than losing interest, forgetting about it, or getting discouraged. This book really outlined a lot of my fears in a clear way, and it’s giving me tools to address some of them. I can’t really ask for anything more than that from a book.

So, that’s what I’ve been up to this week! Have you been reading anything? Let me know in the comments!

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