I must become a borrower of the night

I'm heading out of town for a few days tomorrow and as I'm almost finished Tropic of Cancer, I thought I'd better hit the library up for a couple more novels before I leave. The last thing I want is to be on the road or waiting at the airport, without a book to read; especially after making such good progress in the past month.

I decided to continue reading novels I've never heard of and novels I know nothing about. Mostly because I'm going to have to read them sooner or later, so why not now? But also, it makes me feel like I'm broadening my horizons. When I tell people I just finished The Catcher in the Rye, most have already read it, usually in high school, and don't think my finishing it as any great accomplishment. But when I tell someone I read Light in August they seem more impressed. Okay, actually I've yet to meet anybody who's heard of Light in August, but most have heard of it's author, William Faulkner. They all seem impressed with Faulkner, despite nobody seeming to know anything about him. If you're reading this, and are one of the few who know a lot about William Faulkner, click here.

Anyway, back to the library, I ended up picking up three novels from the list. First is Atonement by Ian McEwan, of which I'm told there was a movie recently, but I know nothing about either the book or the movie, so it fits my qualifications. Second, was Midnight's Children, which the only thing I know about it is that its' author was the subject of a fatwa in the 1980's and 90's for one of his other novels, The Satanic Verses, being insulting to Islam. The third book I picked up was The Corrections by Johnathan Franzen. I just happened to walk by this on the shelf and remembered it from the list. I was actually heading to find I, Claudius, which was most likely one shelf over.

Again, I'm not sure why I've picked up three books from the library. I'm not even finished Tropic yet and I'm picking up three more books. At my current rate, I won't be finished these three until sometime in late 2018. I guess I should be only checking out one book at a time, but then again, who's this hurting?