Book dilemmas

I'm having two book dilemmas. 

First of all, I'm not doing so well on the reading of the Time 100.  I'm having a hell of a time making myself read stuff that I'm not even remotely interested in.  I have two Time 100 books sitting opened on my bookshelf, because I stopped reading them right in the middle.  Anyway, I thought that I'd remedy that by doing the book-on-CD thing, since I've got an hour commute every day.  My sister has been staunchly anti-book-on-CD since we decided that we'd attempt the Time 100, but I think it's a great way to maximize your reading/book enjoying.  And I thought it'd be perfect for getting through some of the real clunkers.  I wasn't super-surprised though, to find that not many of the Time 100 books are on CD, so I decided I'd start ambitious, and listen to The Lord of the Rings (all three books that comprise the trilogy).  Boy, was that a mistake.  (And I guess this isn't really a dilemma, just an observation.)  Frankly, the book is just as boring to listen to as to read.  I know people that love love love these books, and my mom and sister both read them.  I have seen the movies, which I actually really like.  But I cannot stand the books.  I tried to read Fellowship once, and was so thoroughly bored by page 20 that I stopped.  I've done a little better with the audiobook; I'm on disc 12 (out of 16).  But I'm stalled.  I can't make myself put the CD in the player.  I've been listening to music, just to avoid having to finish the audiobook.  It's bad.  It's really bad.  I'm not sure what to do.

Second dilemma:  I remember very fondly reading a series of books named after states.  I did some internet research and found the books, the Wagons West! series by Dana Fuller Ross.  Not shockingly, they're not available new (they are, um, charitably, crap.  But I loved them like crazy when I was a young teenager, and I really want to read them again), and any library that has copies will have tattered, ugly, dirty, very used copies.  Hence, I decided to try to purchase book one (okay, two book ones, one from each of Dana Fuller Ross' series, since I loved both of them.) used.  It wasn't really very hard to locate copies.  What was hard was to locate copies in good condition.  I found copies that were listed "In Very Good Condition", and that was the best I could do.  So I ordered them, thinking that if they were really bad, I'd send them back, or just give up on the idea.  Well, they're here now, and it's not that they're not in good condition.  They're just old, and yellow, and to me, scary.  (Yes, I don't like old/dirty books.  So sue me.)  I want to read them, I really do.  But I'm having a hell of a time picking each of them up, because they're so...icky.  I know it's silly, but ewww.  So the dilemma is how to convince myself that reading these books is okay.  (And I am really longing to read them, I can't even tell you.  I look longingly at them at least once a day.) 

I'm just disgruntled with myself.  That's all.  I'm going to try to get back on the Fellowship horse tomorrow and finish the book by the weekend.  And then I'm taking a LoTR break.

Comments

[C]

Lord Of The Rings has got to be the most boring book I have ever attempted to read. Don't put yourself through that---DON'T DO IT!

[ellie]

THANK YOU! Finally, I'm not the only person who absolutely LOATHED the Lord of the RIngs Trilogy. We were assigned the book in eighth grade, and I took a zero on the report rather than force myself to stumble over all those godawful names and boring story. There is validation in numbers, and as of today, the number two will suffice.