Reading Sabbatical: Day 0

I’m going on a bit of a sabbatical. And by sabbatical I don’t mean anything related to the actual definition of sabbatical ( which is something like paid leave from work to travel or do research or smoke lots of pot). But I don’t feel the need to use the word with any kind of etymological correctness because it is obviously an upper-class luxury that I will never experience. So, sabbaticals and Lexuses can go fuck themselves.

What I am doing, is taking a break from fiction writing in order to devote more time to reading. The last few days I’ve been visiting major bookstore chains looking for non-comic book stuff to read. Here is my problem:

1. I’m cheap. This means I’m pretty much going to only buy books that are on the discount shelves; and those books are typically crap.
   
2. I’m cheap. This means I can pretty much get any of book for less online or at a used book store or at a library.
   
3. I’m cheap. This means I have a lot of unread books sitting on my bookshelf, which are free to read and—due to my cheapness—makes me think I’ve wasted money if don’t read them. And being cheap and wasting money don’t mix well.
   

So due to the above excellent three points, I wasted a lot of time in major book chains looking at a ludicrous amount of books in which I have no way of telling if they are worth the effort of reading. Thus, my task now is to attempt to finish all the books on my bookshelf that are unread or unfinished (maybe my eight-year attempt to finish The People’s History of the United States will come to an end).

What does this mean for this blog and the entire one who reads it? I'll be putting off the collection of noir crime stories about vampires, midget whores, and drunks. I’ll still be writing, but this blog will take on more of a traditional blog format in that it will reflect less fiction about fake people and more fiction about me trying to make my life sound interesting. What follows will be reflections of what I’ve been reading in order to discover if reading is as cool as college professors make it out to be or if the activity has been abandoned by the majority of Americans for a good reason.