Since I’ve gotten back home in late July, I haven’t really been in a reading mood. Again. I couldn’t really say why. I just know that I have so many books hanging around my room (and on my devices) right now and I’m barely picking them up. If I don’t get to it soon, some of these are going to auto-return to my library before I can get through them!

One of them, in fact, already did that. The SAPL library system is under technical changes, so our accounts are inaccessible. I have to access digital books and e-audio through Libby. While Libby is great, the one thing I can’t do is change the length of time that I can keep an e-audiobook. Normally, these are three-week holds, but in the past I’ve put them to seven days (the shortest available) because I download the files and add them onto my phone, then just delete when I’m done. This way I can listen on my own time. (I don’t feel bad about the licensing issues. The librarians are well aware that I do this – as well as many other patrons – and as long as we are deleting them files rather than keeping them, it doesn’t really matter if we listen when our hold happens to come in or save for when we’re in the right mood!) Anyway, this isn’t something I can do with Libby, and my access time is at that truncated seven days, so I lost one book before I’d gotten even two hours into it…

Anyway. Setting that one fail aside, here is what I have sitting around that I need to finish up soon or risk repeating the hold-waiting-list cycle. Digital downloads:

• A History of the World in 6 Glasses by Tom Standage – this is actually the one I had returned on audio form. I have the ebook copy as well, and as of today, 11 days left to read it.
• The Near Witch by VE Schwab – I didn’t expect this one to come in so soon and was hoping to read it during RIP season. It’s due in 8 days, though, so I either need to return it and put it back on hold, or just miss out on the RIP window.
• Why We Sleep by Mathew Walker – This is due now in 10 days, but I’ve literally been reading it for 12 days and I’m only 20% in. Sigh.
• A Song of Wraiths and Ruin by Roseanne Brown – At least this one only came in two days ago, so I have a bit of time left to read after the rest of them expire…

I have no idea how I’ll get through all of these if I’m reading maybe three to five pages a night…

Then there are the physical books:

• How to Take Awesome Photos of Cats by Andrew Marttila – To be fair, I doubt I’ll read this one in its entirety. I just like cats and photography pointers. But I haven’t even opened the pages, not even to look at the cat photos inside…
• Death Notice by Todd Ritter – This is another one I wanted for RIP and had to check out too early. With the library system shutting down for several weeks, all holds had to be in early in the month, or wait until later this week. So I’ve had this one too long, and it may just need to be put on the hold list again.
• The Space Between Worlds by Micaiah Johnson – This is my one non-library book, a BotM selection that so far (a bit over 100 pages in) is good, but my brain is moving too slow and plodding to get as much from it as I’d like. I feel like I should set it aside for several months and try again, but I also feel too book-lazy to start it all over again.

Aaaand then there is the backlog of audiobooks waiting for me:

• Gideon the Ninth – Tamsyn Muir
• The Order of the Pure Moon Reflected in Water – Zen Cho
• Second Skin – Christian White
• History of Bourbon – Ken Albala
• Beyond Strange Lands – David Peterson and Simon Taylor
• Henrietta & Eleanor: A Retelling
• Our Harlem – Marcus Samnuelsson
• Tell Me Lies – JP Pomare
• Blood Territory – Mark Whittaker

I don’t know if all of those will even get read, but I can’t even get myself motivated to test them out and cull them if I don’t like them. Nor do I seem to have any motivation to listen to my upcoming rereads: Words of Radiance, Gentlemen & Players (for my book club!), Oathbringer.

The only thing I want to listen to these days is the RLGS Podcast, and I’d rather watch crap TV than read a book. (Unless it’s the preview chapters for the upcoming Rhythm of War November release, because that’s about the ONLY book on my mind and it trumps all other things.) Other than the little “I feel like reading!” blip in July, I’ve felt this way since mid-February. A month before the pandemic hit home. I’m not sure what’s going on with my reading mojo this year.