Reading is for Railroads

I have a wave of new books here at Casa Pienso, like a dozen in the last month, and here is the number I've read: The big goose egg. Zeroteen. None.

I've started almost all of them, but then like a poodle in a fire hydrant factory, I'm off after something else and when I notice what I'm doing, I am aggrieved in ways unlike a poodle.

Here's most of my list, followed by the page number I'm on, and commentary:

• Danse Macabre by Stephen King. Page 100-something. I can't get into this like I meant to, and I haven't opened it in 6 months. I might give up on it soon.
  
• Pilgrim's Regress by C.S. Lewis. Maybe 2/3 done. I was reading this when we moved, and then I lost track of it. It's pretty good. I'll probably go back to it before the end of the year.
  
• I Am America (And so Can You)! by Stephen Colbert et al. Page 50-ish. This is funny, but it's a one-joke book. I think it's better read in several short sittings.
• The Essential 55 by Ron Clark. About half done. This is an inner-city grade school teacher's 55 rules to train kids to be socialized humans rather than modern barbarians. There are good rules for how to interact with anybody in here though, and if you're not careful, you might just learn something before you're through. Hey hey hey.
  
• The Professor and the Madman by Simon Winchester. Page xiii. Only finished the preface to this book about the overseeing editor of the OED and his greatest volunteer assistant, an inmate at an asylum for the criminally insane.
  
• A Short Life of Christ by Everett F. Harrison. Page 0. I assume it's about Jesus or somebody.
  
• Better Not Bigger by Eben Fodor. Page 0. I think it's about gentrification.
  
• Becoming Dad: Black Men and the Journey to Fatherhood by Leonard Pitts, Jr. Page 40-ish. Leonard Pitts, Jr. is an exceptionally clear thinker, and I just wanted to read anything he had to say. This is the only book he's written, so I'm reading it.
• Don't Make Me Think by Steve Krug. Page 37. A thin book about Web usability.
• We Don't Die We Kill Ourselves by Roger L. De Haan. Page I don't remember. My mechanic had a heart scare and diabetes trouble this year, and he now has a convert's zeal about eating well. So in addition to repairing my brakes, he gave me this book.
  
• Stupid Sock Creatures by John Murphy. Page 13. My lovely wife bought this for me off my amazon wish list because I have been making plush monsters, and this is a good book for that sort of behavior.
  
• The History of the Hobbit by John Rateliff. Page 0. John is a former colleague of mine, and dare I say, a "friend." He is the most knowledgeable guy I know about Lord of the Rings, and you'll just have to trust me when I say that's not faint praise. I know people who can speak Elvish. John Ratliff knows more than those freaks (who are dear to me. They are dear freaks.).

This isn't even all of them! Sweet baby Moses in a handbasket, won't someone lock me in a room with a comfy chaise lounge so I can't get any more distracted from reading these freaking things?

Not counting BlogaDay, of course. BlogaDay soldiers on!