Yeah that’s right. It’s just not going to happen. And frankly, I made myself stop pulling books I’ve not yet read from the shelf and adding them to the stack, but there are more I’d like to be there, and more still I want to order/find. Alas.
If I’m prioritizing, the trio of WMQs comes first because I need/want to stay caught up on the articles and book reviews; Snyder’s Slavery In Indian Country is high on the list, since I’ve heard good things; Witgen’s An Infinity of Nations sneaks in there because it looks interesting to me, though I’m not sure it would bump DuVal’s Native Ground out of the spot it occupies in my Native American history course; and Anderson’s Creatures of Empire has replaced Cronon’s Changes in the Land as the environmental history in my colonial class this fall (students from my first colonial class still complain about how I made them read a “book about trees”–fortunately they’re graduating this Saturday, so those protests should cease), and since that comes early in the fall semester, I should get it out of the way.
After that, we’ll see. Piker’s Four Deaths of Acorn Whistler just has a pretty cover, which is honestly enough sometimes; I’ve had Redicker’s The Slave Ship on my list since I picked Smallwood’s Saltwater Slavery instead for a slavery and resistance class I taught a few years ago; and Powell’s Accidental City and Scott’s Art of Not Being Governed kind of just offer an appealing escape from early America. Some of the others I may zip through pretty quickly, so we’ll see.
On the fun side of thing, there’s a stack of novels sitting around just begging me to pay attention to them, and since this is the time of year for that, we’ll see if I get to Don DeLillo, Alistair Reynolds, Jonathan Safran Foer, Louise Erdrich, Sherman Alexie, or any of the others.
This reminds me: I’ve neglected the optometrist since Dr. Carr retired 5 years ago. Maybe I should get my eyes checked.
