Personal Update: Abortion, Missing Reviews, Goodreads, New Semester

A post in four parts:

Abortion: Yesterday morning I finished Pro by Katha Pollitt, a fabulous work of nonfiction that I reviewed on Goodreads and even made a Facebook status about. I could sing so many praises for Pollitt’s impressive research and incisive writing, but at the center of it all she does a remarkable job of focusing every argument on how the war on abortion acts in truth as the war on women: on women’s rights to equality in every sense. If you feel any ambiguity toward the pro-choice movement, read Pro. Trust me.

Breakfast in Williamsburg with Pro. Feels good to be back.

 Missing Reviews: So why did I not post my review of Pro on this WordPress blog?

Personal Update: Thomas, Revisited

About a month and a half into summer vacation, I still have not published much on this blog. I ask myself why: is it a bad case of writer’s block, or have I lost interest? At first I wondered whether I was just waiting until after I got my license to start anything serious, but even after attaining it after endangering the lives of me and my examiner, here I am writing this post.

Reading Challenge – Books Per Year?

The satfisfaction I feel from finally being "on track", though unwarranted, contributes to my self-esteem. I need friends...

If you haven’t noticed from the proliferation of book reviews I’ve posted lately, I’ve been reading a lot.

Well, not exactly a lot, but more than I’m usually able to. With school beginning for me in less than a week I’m trying to squeeze in some books to increase my yearly book count.  Last year my goal was 150, and I got to 146. This year it’s 100, and I’m currently at 66. I don’t expect to reach 100 with the amount of coursework I’ll be burdened with once school starts, but hey, it’s better to aim high than settle for too little, right?

I’m not saying that the number of books you read per year is indicative of how avid a reader you are. It is quality over quantity, after all. As the years pass I think I’ll read about 70-80 books annually, depending on the difficulty of the texts and what not. If I go to law school like my family wants me to that number will probably decrease, but if I become a hermit and seclude myself from the world with a lifetime supply of novels…

Do you have a reading goal? Do you try to read a certain amount of books per year? The book counter on Goodreads can help you keep track of the number of books you read, and so can this site.

Weird With Numbers – Odd is the New Ugly

So I was meandering around my Goodreads profile when I saw this:

My first feeling was this strange combination of repulsion and irritation, like when you notice a pimple on your face. Or when you have to shelve a Harlequin romance novel with an awkward cover at the library and fear that people will assume you’re reading it.

But then I thought to myself, what the heck? It’s just an odd number, so why do I feel so bothered by it?

And then I had an epiphany – all along, I’ve possessed a subconscious disliking of odd numbers. Here’s what I mean:

– I always pause running on my treadmill when the number of calories I’ve burned is even.
– I always attempt to maintain an even number of friends on Facebook and Goodreads.
– I always stop reading books on an even-numbered page.
– For some reason, multiples of five are excluded from the odd numbers I detest.

I’m not even kidding. I suppose it might be that even numbers are more orderly and neat, or maybe that they’re aesthetically appealing while odd numbers are ugly. Not to be egotistical, but I really want another follower on Goodreads, just to get rid of that 39…

I try to keep my average rating even, too – I remember when it was 3.77 and I purposely read a bad book (or, a book getting negative reviews but seemed interesting) just to lower the rating. I was going to read it eventually, but I chose it first out of the pile because, well, you know… I’m weird.

Does anyone else have this idiosyncrasy? If so, please share – I don’t want to feel like such a miserable freak terrified by the number 7 I’m the only one.