Sluuuumped

   SO, I have not been reading very much so far this month, mostly due to a habit of starting a zillion books at once, taken in conjunction with what I will call "life distractions". So my "currently-reading" list on Goodreads is six books deep but I have added a mere two books to my "read" list since June, and one of them was a comic and one was an audiobook. Ach.

   And so, a list of the books I am currently in the middle of:

• Bad Feminist / Roxane Gay. I know, I know, how is it possible that I haven't read this yet, how is it possible that I didn't finish it in a maximum of three sittings. I myself am unsure, and have laid the blame directly on the copy I had being an ebook, my kobo dying, and the ebook expiring because it had to go back to the library. BUT I can confidently say that when it's my turn with this book again I will DEVOUR it and will probably read the essay on being friends with women at least eight times. 
• Bleak House / Charles Dickens. So good, so damn long. I read this on my phone as my "wth why don't I have a book with me" book, so it's taking forever but that don't mean it ain't delightful. I've watched the BBC adaption of Bleak House a couple times and it has been helpful in keeping characters and events straight in my mind. Also: hands up if you love Gillian Anderson. 
  
• Resurrection / Leo Tolstoy. I don't know what made Tolstoy want to write this book with such short chapters, but am I ever glad he did. I can read two or three chapters and feel very accomplished, even though they are rarely more than four pages long. My complaint about the Russians remains: why so many names for one person.
• Cold Mountain / Charles Frazier. I have been slowly plodding through this book since December. IT'S JULY. 
• The Photographer / Emmanuel Guibert. This is one of the books mentioned in The Initiates, and it is really, really, really good. Taking a strangely long time to read, for a comic book. It's about Didier Lefevre and the work he did as a photographer with MSF/DWB in Afghanistan in 1986. How much do I know about 1986 Afghanistan? Basically nothing. This has been eye-opening. 
• South / Ernest Shackleton. I love Antarctic exploration. I was so thoroughly invested in this book (which I had from the library as an audiobook) that I had to take an anxiety-induced break when the Endurance started to be crushed by the ice and as a result didn't finish the book before the file expired but DON'T WORRY, I'll be back to it soon. If you haven't read this, read it. Even if you've read about the Endurance expedition before; it is a whole different ballgame hearing it in Shackleton and his men's own words. 

   Here's hoping that the rest of July will be a bit more productive, reading-wise. Play us out, Arnold.