I've been better about reading lately.

And part of the improvement is due to facebook, which is funny because facebook is such a time-waster, what with games, flirting, et cetera. You see, I added an application to the facebook profile called "Visual Bookshelf". It allows you to show people what you're reading, as well as what you have already read. Now, I'm not going to go back and try to remember every darned book I've ever read to display on this (there's a music version of this where I do display every album I own). Since I loaded the program, I've been showing what I'm reading, then marking the books as "finished". The finished books also display below what I'm actively reading, so I almost appear semi-literate.

I correctly thought that if I publicly tell everybody what I'm reading, I would feel more obligated to finish the book. I actually do feel that social pressure, so I'm now picking up books I've either had trouble finishing in the past (Patricia Cromwell's Post Mortem and J. M. Roberts' History Of The World are prime examples--for different reasons). I'd like to think that the public announcements of what I'm reading would also mean I would read a better class of book, but I know better than that. I'm hardly ashamed of that. It's not like I read pornography, but I don't exactly spend my days reading Tolstoy and Cervantes... And I'm not ashamed!

CDs listened to today:

• Nicholas Maw: American Games
• Reel Big Fish: Turn The Radio Off
• Metric: Live It Out
• Daniel Perlongo: Concerto For Piano And Orchestra
• Lisa Stansfield: (eponymous)
• Luciano Berio: Rendering Per Orchestra