Falling Into the Readathon: Shiny New Things

Readathon Days are here again! The skies above are...

Well. Never mind about the skies, which are sort of gloomy and overcast. I'm focused on my stack of books for the next 24 hours.

In my previous post, I discussed all my half-read projects like Frankenstein and the Sontag biography, but a funny thing happened on the way to the Readathon: I was once again seduced by the shiny and new. Blame it on The New Yorker, which keeps appearing mysteriously in my mailbox. I don't know why. I love it, but I didn't subscribe to it. I guess I give off a heady bookworm scent that defies conventional borders.

Pictured above, this is my shiny new object: Lucky Per, a 1904 novel by Danish writer Henrik Pontoppidan. (His name makes me smile, but I tremble every time I type it, for fear of misspelling it.)

Why did I feel compelled to go out and get Lucky Per? The usual reasons: It's old and obscure. There are good, strong whiffs of Realism. And yeah, this Everyman edition is so stinking cute. I'm not that hard to figure out, am I?

Okay, time for that first cup of coffee in my beloved Korea mug.

My plan is to read the last 150 pages of Sontag, then move onto Frankenstein, then soak my eyes in a vat of Visine.

Happy reading to all the Readathon participants. As always, I wish Dewey could be here with us, but I feel her spirit.