Please Excuse the Whine

I feel like I went a long time without finishing a book and now in the last two weeks it seems I've finished quite a few. Maybe it's because I read so many at the same time. If one week goes by and I don't finish a book, I begin to get an unsettled feeling. Two weeks and I feel like something is wrong and begin questioning my readerly dedication. But during the third week or so I finish quite a few books and I feel better. Then I get a little sad because I have to start a bunch of new books. Starting new books is exciting, not sad. What is sad is knowing there will be another dry spell before I finish one. Or two. Or three. Those of you who read one book at a time will, no doubt, say that if I'd only focus I'd have more consistency and wouldn't have to go through the highs and lows. I'd be steady Eddie, full speed ahead and all that. But, I ask you to recall that Doritos chip commercial from way back, the one with the tag line "you can't eat just one." Books are like that for me. Except I don't really eat them per se, it's more of a "I can't read just one." I haven't always been this way. I used to read one book at a time and imagine that I could never read more than that. All the while I was doing just that since I was in college and majoring in English literature. My husband, who was only my boyfriend at the time, usually had at least two books going at once, often more. I marveled at him. How could he do that? Then he laughed at me. The scales fell away from my eyes so to speak, and I have never been able to read just one book since. I didn't mean to write a post like this when I sat down. I was going to tell you about a good book I finished a few days ago called The Kin of Ata Are Waiting for You. i could erase everything up until now and tell you about the book, but I am not going to. I am going to keep you in suspense about the book and why I liked it. I will say, however, that finishing the Kin of Ata is what has prompted this whining post in the first place. It was the last of a bunch of books and now I need to start a few new ones. I am in the middle of Assassination Vacation and Categories on The Beauty of Physics and I imagine I will be able to finish one or both of them by next week. But after that? Might be awhile before I make it through my book Doritos. Note: I forgot to mention that The Guardian has a nicely done obit for Octavia Butler. How I would have managed to work that into the above I have no idea. So here it is, tacked on as a tacky note at the end. Maybe it's just the weekend I need. Yeah, that's it. And Another Note. My kind sister informs me my pop culture memory is faulty and it is is Lays potato chips, not Doritos that used the slogan "Bet you can't eat just one." I stand corrected.