markk

Last year I started to use the various holidays and commemorations as opportunities to read more about the subjects being celebrated. It began with last year's Black History Month, during which I read Jeffrey Stewart's superb biography of Alain Locke, and I followed up with similar efforts during Women's History Month and Labor Day weekend. I'm really coming to enjoy the experience, too, as it pushes me to explore areas of the past that I don't give the attention I should.

A couple of weeks ago, I decided that for Black History Month this year I would read David W. Blight's new biography of Frederick Douglass. I've wanted to read it ever since I learned he was writing it; he's a fantastic historian, and the acclaim which it has received since its release has suggested that it is every bit as good as I'm expecting it to be. I checked out a copy earlier this week, and it now sits on a table awaiting to be read.

Only I don't know if I'll be able to get to it anytime soon.

This, of course, is a problem entirely of my own making. A month ago I found myself in one of my periodic reviewing droughts in terms of podcast interviewing. I contacted a few authors, then a couple more when I didn't receive any responses to my initial requests, only to get a sudden flurry of acceptances when nearly all of them replied to accept my interview offers — just after I agreed to two proposals from the site editor to interview authors who contacted him about interviews. Because of this, I have no less than eight interviews in various stages of preparation, and I'm committed to doing five of them this month alone. It's not an unmanageable load, but when combined with my other reading commitments it doesn't leave me much time for nearly 900 pages about Douglass, no matter how badly I want to read about him.

Gaah, why do I do this to myself?