I haven't done as much reading on the Kindle since I've been home from my last trip, mainly because I've been outside pounding nails more often than usual. However there's another reason as well.

I used to force myself to alternate one fiction with one non-fiction book as I read throughout the year. The idea was that this would improve myself a bit in between the enjoyable novels. I abandoned that ad I got busier with work and needed the breaks more than the improvement. Or at least that's what I told myself.

In any case, when I was first loading up my Kindle for the last trip, I didn't want to load $100 worth of books, so I downloaded some classics  (see the last post for a list). My plan was to alternate some classics in between some of the other ones that I really enjoy. I did a bit of that on the way out, reading some of The Count of Monte Cristo and re-reading The Declaration of Indepenence on the trip. On the trip I bought a few business books as well as some novels to round out my list.

Over the last week I've been forcing myself to alternate between 3 books. The Kindle makes this easy since my Home screen shows the books I've accessed or purchased in reverse chronological order. So as I switch books, that book moves to the top. I've been trying to continue with The Count of Monte Cristo, which is hard to read, almost done with Naked Conversations (Scoble's blogging book), and Old Man's War, a sci-fi future novel from John Scalzi. I've forced myself to read a chapter from one of the books, then switch to the other one. Using that method, I've gotten through 6 chapters of the Count, 5 of Scoble's book and 5 of Old Man's War.

Until today. I took a break and read a chapter of Scalzi's futuristic war and got to an exciting part. I finished the chapter and read 2 more before taking a break. I feel a bit bad, but those other two can't be considered exciting. After humans fighting other races in the future, 19th century France seems rather tame.