60 in 60: Weeks Four and Five in Review

Up on the Amazon book blog, I've got my latest summary, with rankings, of my reading over the last couple of weeks--only nine books since it doesn't include this weekend, and the first week was half a week, given the break between sets.I'm finding the experience both more and less intense as I come close to the half-way point. I've settled into a rhythm now, but the books I don't like as much I find much, much harder to stir myself to write about, especially in terms of diving into specifics. The books I do like a lot...well, I'm having a hard time not babbling on and on about them. I also find myself getting fidgety when there aren't many (or any) comments on a piece. Did I get it wrong? Was it boring? Is anyone reading? These are pointless things to think about, but there it is...In the background, there's at times a low-grade resentment, of not being able to experience the books at my leisure. I've got a pile of the ones I want to go back to by my bed. I've also got a list of authors I want to explore further--both their work and biographies of their lives.Another, more pleasing emotion, is a sense of connection to the past. The more of these books I read, the more the past seems to open itself up to me, and to exist side-by-side with the present. Every time an essay or part of an essay reveals itself as either still relevant or providing great detail about the time in which it was written, I also experience an ever-growing, somewhat weird, sense of...calm. It's no exaggeration to say that, at least in the short-term, reading these books is making me a more thoughtful, measured person overall.And I continue to be blown away by the design of these books, which is nothing short of extraordinary, especially in mass market paperbacks, often thought of as disposable.