So Many Books, So Little Time.

Have you ever found that you've wanted to read all the books on your wish list and Mt To Be Read, but just don't have the time?  Well, for me, it's the opposite that's true.  I have a lot of time on my hands, yet not many books get read all because I've got so many books on the go.  

Right now, I'm in the middle of a book called 'The Enchanted April' by Elizabeth Von Arman and even though it's a charming classic, I'm really not getting into it.  It's dragging just that bit - just enough - that I'm not really wanting to read it.  However, I am pushing on as the chapters I'm reading now are just a lull until it picks up again.

Then, there's Dorothy Porter's 'The Monkey's Mask' which is a murder mystery written totally in verse.  I'm loving it completely; and can't wait until the murderer is revealed to us all.  I have other books that are by my bed all with bookmarks sticking out of them.  There's 'Parrot and Olivier in America' by Peter Carey, 'Animal Farm' by George Orwell, 'The Gargoyle' by Andrew Davidson, 'The Long, Dark Tea-Time of the Soul' by Douglas Adams and 'Hotel Bellevue' by Thomas Shapcott... all of these are at various stages of being read; all the bookmarks sitting out of the books marking the frozen spot in time on the pages that I left it for a little while for me in the real world; but not at all inside those pages.

I know that having all those book half-finished may seem a little excessive, but really, I did have every intention of completing them before moving on to the next book.  But it was my Mt To Be Read that beckoned me to pick up that next book - to try it out and read the first few paragraphs - to see if I'd like it.  And I did!  Then, the next thing I knew, I received one in the mail and I had to put down the books, read the one from the mailbox... and well, by the end of it, I had forgotten I had the other one on the floor.  Or I had lost interest in it and couldn't bring myself to admit it; well not yet.  

So, I've been trying to read all those books sitting by my bed in my spare time - the ones I've left there gathering dust bunnies - and one by one, I've finished them.  And seeing I do have a lot of time on my hands, it's a lot easier to read a book whenever I can - usually at night - and then once they're finished, I can either give them away, or hold onto them to read again at a later date to see if they have the same hold over me from the very first reading.  

So, are there books you have begun, put down - for whatever reason - and then picked up later and finished?  If so, which ones?  If you have and haven't completed them, let us know of them too.  We may have something in common in the way we read as well in what we read too.