I’m going to take a break from diabetes today — writing about it, at least.
I rearranged my reading list this morning, finally acknowledging the fact that it had spilled over onto another shelf and that it wasn’t shrinking nearly as quickly as I had hoped.
Fifty-five books. (Click for larger. . .)
There would be fifty-six, but this afternoon I finished a short book on the life and works of Gustave Courbet, the nineteenth century Romantic/Realist French painter, bad boy, and Communard. This continues a trend of reading about notable French painters: Eugène Delacroix, Jean-Auguste-Dominique Ingres, and Édouard Manet. If you look closely, you can see Ross King’s The Judgement of Paris there on the shelf. I’ve read about a third of the interesting — if somewhat passion-free — book about Meissonier, Manet, Monet, the revolution in French painting, and the birth of Modernism and Impressionism.
The truly sad thing is that shortly after I finished reading the aforementioned book about Courbet, instead of picking up The Judgement of Paris, I went to Amazon to see what books I could find about Jacques-Louis David. This, if nothing else, demonstrates that I’m a depth-first learner. When I get interested in something — 19th century French painting, for example — I tend to get really into it. But as you can see from my reading list that spans two freakin’ shelves, I get distracted (or maybe “burned out” is a better phrase) and move on to something else.
(Fortunately, there really are very few books available about just J-L David. So one day I’ll get myself over to the Newton Free Library and settle in for an evening of reading about a truly revolutionary figure.)
I’ve been thinking about this aspect of my personality recently. I don’t have this “problem” of amassing too many books and then losing interest in subjects at work. Well, not anymore. Ever since I switched over to a leaner, “just in time” learning mindset a few years ago, I’ve been doing much better. So why can’t I do that away from the office? Why doesn’t that whole Getting Things Done ™ mindset carry over at home? Who knows?
Anyway, I feel like I should do something about my reading list — short of just shelving the books elsewhere in the library. I don’t read quickly enough to read a book a day. Reading one a week might be pushing it, but it seems like a worthy goal.
Ask me after Christmas how I’m doing.