My wife and I have challenged ourselves this year to read more books than in previous years. Last year I read 79, and my wife read 72. This year, I set a goal of 90, and she set a goal of 80. In order to reach our goals, we have taken to listening to audiobooks on car trips. We ski at a mountain about three hours from home and spend a lot of time in the car during the winter months; more recently, we’ve been driving 5-7 hours to see our daughter in upstate New York. We went to her graduation, helped her move, and then made several trips to bring her furniture we found on Facebook Marketplace for her new apartment. She and her boyfriend parted ways, and besides the bedroom furniture, he took most of the furniture. For some reason, Facebook Marketplace has better furniture options in New Hampshire than in Syracuse. So, we have spent a lot of time in the car.
Today was one of those days when we spent most of the day driving to New York. I found a book to listen to: How to Sell a Haunted House by Grady Hendrix. We are 35% of the way through it, and I am enjoying it a lot. It’s a horror story about a woman whose parents die unexpectedly, and she has to go home to settle their affairs and deal with a brother with whom she doesn’t get along. Without giving too much away, things don’t go as planned, and then the fun begins.
He does a great job explaining the backstory in the first third of the book without making it a data dump. I could also feel the woman’s emotions and frustrations through his storytelling. I had read his HorrorStor a few weeks ago, so I was looking forward to this one. It made driving on the Masspike considerably more enjoyable. I still got annoyed when people cut me off, trying to squeeze between me and the car in front of me, even though nobody was behind me. But maybe that’s the real reason why I felt the main character’s pain so much.
I’m not sure we will finish this one on the ride back, but I am looking forward to how it turns out.
Side note, I am eight books ahead of schedule right now according to Goodreads. Some of those are short stories and novellas, but some are also 600-800 page books. I have to balance that out if I want to reach my goal. But it makes me wonder whether setting goals like this is a good thing. Maybe I am also wondering if posting something every day is a good thing.