I'm not a bibliophile, although you wouldn't know it from my shelves. I'm a reader, and one of the results is I have lots of books. I've been gradually making the transition to electronic books, but it's slow-going when you've accumulated the number of physical books I have. Of course, when you have a lot of books, you tend to get creative with the storage: storing books behind books, stuffing end-tables, the reader's version of feathering the nest, as it were. Anyway, I took a restock of my hide-away bookshelves and realized that, through the course of a decade, I have accumulated some 144 Doctor Who novels. Well, to be exact, 144 hard-back and paper-back novels -- otherwise known as Dead Tree (aka DT) books. I bought these things, even paying outrageous shipping costs to have a good number of them airlifted from Britain, because I sincerely wanted to read them.
Reality check: I've read exactly five of these novels in the past five years.
How sad. I still want to read them. I'm a fan in good standing for several decades -- the Who franchise, after all, is almost as old as I am. I was two when the series first aired and even though it took a while for PBS to air it in the states, Who hit the US during my so-called formative years and I feel the good Doctor and I have grown up together. It's a kind of comfort food for the mind, I suppose. And now, the powers-that-be in the BBC are releasing the New Who series of books for the Kindle -- no shipping fees! -- and I'm anxious to read them, too.
But the reality is, I really need to get a handle on the Dead Tree situation in my house. It's off the chain between the books I've read and love and keep, and the books I've yet to read. So, here's my new challenge and a reading resolution for 2010: read fully half of the DT Who novels I already have. That will be 70 books to be devoured this year, just from the Whovian division. I'll squeeze in some other stuff, of course. I'm a Gemini, after all, and I have to satisfy the other twin, the one that's all serious and stuff. It'll be an interesting challenge and I'm looking forward to it. So, if any Whocentric reviews or notes show up on the blog, you'll be forewarned. Feel free to shake your head and pass on by. I'll be busy reading when/if you get back.
Great song from Soundgarden, covered by Johnny Cash, among others:
