Progress on number 48 continues, as I read The Painted Bird by Jerzy Kosinski. I'll admit it might end up being a bit of a slow read. I say this because the book is turning out to be a major downer; it's about the Holocaust. While there's nothing wrong with a 'depressing' book, many good reads are, it's just that it's a difficult read, and one you don't just breeze though. But it isn't slow because of boredom, like To the Lighthouse or because it's so mammoth like Infinite Jest. I'm hoping that as I get deeper into it, my pace will pick up.
In other news, I've been having a little bit of trouble managing my library books. After not incurring any fines for almost six months, I racked up fines on Animal Farm and Red Harvest in October, but only $1.40, so nothing to write home about. Before I left for Hawai'i, I thought I had made sure I had everything renewed until I got back, but some how missed two, which became overdue the day I left. It wasn't until yesterday afternoon I realized I had two book that were more than ten days overdue. The books in question were Christopher Hitchens' biography of Thomas Jefferson, as well as poet Ian Williams' Not Anyone's Anything. As a result, my library account was locked, and I was billed $7.30. To add to my shame, I didn't read either of them, which means I paid the library seven bucks to store their books on my shelf for a few weeks.
When I had started this project, I only borrowed one or two books at a time, but thought that with the Internet making it so easy to renew, I could take out dozens at a time, and always manage them without any problems. I guess I was wrong. While it is still much less expensive than buying all the books I read, I have now generously donated $41.15 to the Calgary Public Library since November of 2009. Of that, $25.15 has been from books from the list.
I vow to not incur any more fines, until the next time I forget to return a book on time; which could be as early as next week.
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