Have all his ventures fail'd?

I've failed my goal of finishing Possession by today. I had set this goal for a couple of reasons. First of all, and most importantly, I wanted to finish #69 from this list. But I also wanted to finish it by today because I'm heading to Costa Rica in a couple of hours.

It would have been nice to be starting #70 as I left for this vacation, but as I haven't finished, it comes along with me. And what will happen is I'll either finish it on the plane or at the latest on the first day I'm there; I do only have a 100 pages left, and nine hours of flying time.

I've also come to the conclusion that I don't really care for Possession. It has its moments, and they're great, but it also has 50 pages of journal entries that seemingly drag on forever; and they aren't great. Reading a book you're not that into, while on vacation isn't all that appealing. I remember trying to read The Recognitions while I was in The Bahamas. Lying on the beach trying to read that dull behemoth was an impossible task. I was so easily distracted from my task at hand, I probably only managed 20 pages of it in a week. I did read 4 non-list books though.

But it's this situation I don't want to repeat in Costa Rica. I don't want to be avoiding finishing Possession whilst on vacation, and arrive home having not read any of it, and hence still be stuck on 69. So, I will make it my mission to finish this book on the plane, which means by breakfast tomorrow, I'll be reading something else!

Then I can move on to #70, which right now looks to be American Pastoral by Philip Roth. I've also brought A Handful of Dust by Evelyn Waugh with me, because of my patented wishful thinking where I somehow read eight books on vacation.

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