I’m going out on a limb here, just a little, and showing you (some of) my true colors. Raising one of my freak flags!

There are times when I seriously scare myself. Like, “What kind of a weirdo, am I?!” kind of scare myself. This week I’m tripping over the fact that I’ve become obsessed with creating a database of the books I have read over the last several years and it all started because I couldn’t remember if I had read a particular book and then couldn’t find it on my shelf, but I KNOW I read it.

Did I get rid of it? Did someone borrow it? Was it on my Kindle? Did I see the movie and THINK to read the book? Or am I completely delusional? I don’t know!

I know everyone does that, forgets what they’ve read or watched, but it’s bugging me and not so much in a bad way. I’ve been keeping a journal of what I read since around 2017 when I started blogging about books. I’ve kept track of the book title, author, date read, pages and hours, along with notes about the book as I read. And I tally up that information in some way each New Year’s Day.

I also know that’s crazy strange to non-readers, and only slightly less eyebrow lifting to you casual readers, but I love it. It’s my version of celebrating the past year. I’ve mentioned many times how much I love keeping a physical journal with paper and pen, but it isn’t searchable, you know?

I mean it WAS back when I had one journal, but now that I’m finishing my fifth…yikes.

A few days ago, I decided to go back through those journals and create an excel spreadsheet of them all, so that I can quickly do a search to see if I have indeed read the book in the past and when. Oh, man…I should note whether I blogged about said book in my table!

Yeah, I know. Special.

Guess what! That’s not what I came here to talk about today!

This morning, after reading another thirty minutes in The Religion of Democracy by Amy Kittelstrom, I gave it up. I just can’t go on. I know I said I would plow through, but I got to the next chapter, and it just felt like it was draining my soul to read another page.

I’ll summarize what I got out of this book, because it wasn’t a waste of time to read what I did.

Christianity split around the time of the American Revolution into two sides. One said the bible was static and we must follow it word for word. The other said that God gave us free will and a brain to use, so reason and logic are important, giving us the ability to interpret it how we see fit, within parameters of course.

Personally, I have a problem with both sides, but I won’t get into that because I’ll just start fights with people. I will say that do believe spirituality is highly personal and everyone has a fundamental right to follow their own conscience. I also believe you cannot force others to believe what you believe.

I’ll just leave that right there and return to the book. It’s not a bad book, it’s just not for me right now. The glory of reading is that it’s like an infinite buffet. It’s fine if you love one item so much that you gorge yourself at one end of the table. But remember you only have so much time and one stomach. If you’re not loving it, move down the table and sample something else.

I decided to pick up I.Asimov: A Memoir this morning and I’m loving THAT to the extreme. I love memoir and autobiography, and the one’s by authors are extra special. I’ll tell you all about it tomorrow.