Commitment Issues

Okay, I admit it: I have way too many irons in the proverbial fire when it comes to reading. At any given moment, I might be reading any of these books:

Things Not Seen by Andrew Clements, a YA novel about a boy who wakes up invisible one morning. He befriends a girl who is blind while his super-smart parents attempt to figure out and undo the phenomenon.

So You Don't Want to Go to Church Anymore by Wayne Jacobsen and Dave Coleman. Clever title, huh? I bought this one while browsing at WalMart after recognizing Jacobsen's name. I once read an article by the guy, curiously titled "Why I Don't Go to Church Anymore." I'm having sort of a hard time with the premise: an evangelical guy meets a strange stranger named John who seems to be a blast-from-the-past prophet. Interestingly enough, all of his supposedly divinely-inspired messages sound exactly like the main points of Jacobsen's article. Hm.

The Magician's Book by Laura Miller, which is in no way a spellbook or guide to becoming the next David Copperfield. It's an interesting mix of personal memoir and literary criticism of the Chronicles of Narnia, with a dash of biography of CS Lewis. Naturally, I'm all about it.

Harry Potter and the Half-Blood Prince by JK Rowling. This requires no explanation. I'm rereading it (hopefully) before the movie opens. I am excited to the point of being obnoxious.

I've been whittling on all of these books for weeks and, of course, have finished none if them. So I've taken to boosting my totals by reading books that take next to no effort to read from cover to cover:

Diary of a Wimpy Kid by Jeff Kinney took me no time. Of course, it is a "novel in cartoons," according to the subtitle, for middle-schoolers. I could have read the entire series in one day, but wouldn't want to. The book was cute enough, but not exactly by idea of quality reading. I guess Sherman Alexie spoiled me.

Things I Learned from Knitting...Whether I Wanted to or Not by Stephanie Pearl-McPhee may not even count as a real book. The Yarn Harlot here lists forty-five well-known bits of wisdom and puts a knitterly and humorous spin on them. I'm not finished reading this tiny book yet, but I could be before dawn. And if it is as funny as it was last night, I'll be waking up everyone in my sister's house with laughter.

(I know. My book titles aren't underlined. And there are no links. This iPhone app has no frills, I tell ya.)