Lazy Reading – February 2020

So, just to get straight to the point – I’ve been super lazy this month when it comes to reading. There hasn’t been a lot of motivation to pick up any of my books and read, even on the bus. Made apparent by my last post being the January update. Despite this, I did manage to get through one book and three quarters of the way through another; reviews will be up at some point later this week, but still thought it was worth detailing my reading journey for the month, even if it was a short one.

Horrific commutes made easily by delving into a good book…

Much like the ridiculously long header, my journey too and from work has become very long. I live in Nottingham – England; a medium sized city with a wonderful history yet horrendous road system. At the beginning of the month the main bridge out of the city, and the main route to where I live, developed a crack under it forcing the council to shut the bridge. What ensued from this has been weeks of 2-4 hour traffic delays, made worse a week later by heavy rain causing all the roads to flood. This left me with no other choice than to sit on a bus for hours, hoping that at some point i’d get home.

However, once I got myself together and came to terms with the long bus journey I managed to get through my first book of the month, “Mythos: the Greek Myths Retold” by Stephen Fry. A book I’d seen on the shelves for a while and then received as a present at Christmas, it was a good enough size to help me through the long bus ride. I’ll talk more about this book in a seperate post, but the sarcastic and witty writing the Stephen Fry brought to well known-myths was a great outlet for my real-life frustrations.

So long and thanks for the distraction from work…

With the enfuriating traffic jams to deal with I was also having more personal concerns with how happy I was at work. Before Christmas I was promoted into a new job at work, something I’d worked had to earn. However, having gone through the busy Christmas period I now had time to sit and think about how happy I actually was. Turns out not very. Another position has now come up that will enable me do the parts of my job that I enjoy doing but don’t currently have the time to do.

So, while I had been going back and forth over what I wanted to do with work, I needed a quick and easy book to help me escape my thoughts even for a moment. Here is when I picked up “So Long, and Thanks for All the Fish” by Douglas Adams. Now, I haven’t actually read the other books before this, but having seen and loved the movie I was still able to understand what was going on in this book. This has been something I really enjoyed and has encouraged me to go out and find the other books – I have a couple chapters left, but once I’ve finished I’ll be sure to review this highly.

What comes next?

My book choices never have any specific rhyme or reason to them, I’ll normally look at all my books and pick the ones i’m most drawn to at the time. So I can’t say for sure what I’ll be reading throughout March. I can say though, that I’m learning from February and hoping to read a lot more – I’m definitely going to have more time with the Nottingham traffic set to continue like this for the rest of the year.

I also want to put out there, what sort of books have you read this month? Have you read the ones above or know of similar books that I might enjoy?