Hard Decisions Made by Hard Covers

This weekend, I decided to run by the library and grab a few books to read for my own pleasure. Now that the semester is completely underway, I wanted to make sure I was continuing to mix my personal interests, with my school learning. As a result, I went straight to authors from 19th-20th century eastern-Europe-- as is my go-to in times of stagnation. I first decided to grab a copy of "War & Peace" by Leo Tolstoy. I've never read Tolstoy, and had meaning to begin making my way through his works, but my decision didn't end there. There were three different copies. The first was a large, soft-cover volume. The next, was a large, hard-cover volume. The last, was divided into three smaller hard-cover volumes. Each cover was a plain red, with the title on the binding. And although it seems insignificant, reasonably sized, plain colored, hard-cover books are my favorite to read and hold, and so my decision was locked once I say the third copy (which was broken into three books itself).

Secondly, I began scrolling through Milan Kundera's books. Kundera has proven to be a favorite writer of mine over my time here, at Northeastern. I was originally introduced to him by my best-friend's mother. She handed me "The Unbearable Lightness of Being," and ever since I've been working my way through his library. While I usually make my decision based on interest to the subject or theme of the book, this time I made my decision similarly to how I had chosen which copy of "War & Peace" to read. I glanced over the section, and within a moment my eyes were drawn to a reasonably sized, plain red, hard-cover book titled "Life is Elsewhere." Knowing Kundera has not let me down to date, I made my decision within a few seconds and moved on.

After having already grabbed two novels, I knew I needed something easier to digest. Within the same row of books I had grabbed "Life is Elsewhere" was a collection of Anton Chekhov books. I had already known Chekhov had written collections of short stories, so I glanced through the selection until I saw "Love & Other Stories". Knowing I had about three and a half weeks before the books were due, I quickly flipped through the three books I had grabbed and divided pages of the novels by days, and the short stories also by days, and after debating how doable my reading list was, I decided as long as I read a short-story a day, and 50 pages a day in the novels, I'd have them all done a day before they were due. And three days later, I am on track, and enjoying each of the books more than I could've hoped.