Monday, May 16, 2011

I'm the Frog in the Well

Think back to the word problems about the frog stuck in well from when you were in school.  Year after year there were questions about frogs who found themselves down a well trying to get out.  Hop up 5 bricks and fall back two every night.  He's x number of bricks from the top, how many days will it take for him to get out.  Yeah, don't think about the fact that the frog will eventually get tired, starve and give up trying to get out of the well and just die.

Anyway, I digress, sometimes I feel a bit like that frog in the well when it comes to writing book reviews.  I'm always happy to have plenty of reading material and I enjoy writing reviews, but right now I feel like I'm never going to pare my stack of review books down to single digits.  Take today for example.  I wrote two reviews and thought I was making decent progress.  I even have another two reviews that I hope to have published by the end of the week.  Then Ellie happily ran back from the mailbox with an envelope that could only have a review book in it.  Only, I was wrong.  It didn't have one book, it had two.  So this evening I have the same number of books to review as I did this morning.  The good news is the two new books are children's books (with illustrations) so I'll have Madeline to help me assess them.

Now I'm not complaining about this at all, but I do feel a little discouraged that I just can't make a dent in my pile of review books.  I blame being pregnant for the back log.  Ordinarily I'm zipping through books  and find myself looking for something new to read.  The first trimester killed me.  I couldn't read for more than five minutes without feeling overwhelmed.  I'd get dizzy, my stomach would start turning and I'd have to put the book down.  I had weeks where I never even opened a book [that didn't have pictures on every page].  While that was my reality, I'm pretty sure a book arrived on my doorstep just about every other day.  Ok, I'm exaggerating a bit, but I have close to twenty books awaiting a review at this time.  Some of them may never see a review from me, but most of them will.  Maybe I'll have to do a rapid fire review post sometime in the future where I offer a decent blurb about a handful of books.  That will help this frog get out of the well.

Someday, I'll get to read the small stack of books I brought.  Dork that I am, I'm dying to delve into Blessed John Paul II's Theology of the Body, the Compendium of the Catechism of the Catholic Church, and The Rite. (Sounds like great poolside reading, doesn't it?)  I did take a break from reading review books during holy week and I spent a nice chunk of my time reading Jesus of Nazareth: Holy Week.  Maybe someday I'll get a few moments to blog a review for that book.

2 comments:

  1. We are always the hardest on ourselves. I think you can take more than a couple weeks off from book reviewing. i love so much to read, but if I had to review a book after i read it, it would put too much pressure on me. I admire that you can do both. I received the most beautiful two-toned confirt cross in the mail today. Just the perfect size for my hand, and I'm sure, my daughte's as well. I'm going to give it to her as a special little gift. thanks so much!!

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