Last week I told you I'd be reading at least one book a month, a half-hearted stab at founding Oprah's Book Club for Opinionated Assholes.

Yeah, the me from last week is a fucking liar.

Mandatory reading is plagued by the same problem as mandatory prostate exams: regulation transforms an otherwise enjoyable activity into a chore. I promised myself to finish Malcolm Gladwell's What the Dog Saw by February 1st, but to what end?

Trying to burn through a novel a month is just as silly as trying to write a novel in a month, for the same reason: imposing arbitrary limitations on a leisure activity is an exercise in perversity. NaNoWriMo and Oprah provide an abusive framework that rewards participants for partaking in an activity that ought to be it's own reward. The chances of anyone garnering significant financial and social success as an author is slim, so why pen fiction if you don't enjoy the process? Losing yourself in a good book is it's own reward, but it's impossible to stray from the path if you stick to the checkpoints.

I guess what I'm saying is that I can't shake the feeling of trying to atone for something, and I'll be damned if I'll let an essay about the Dog Fucking Whisperer assuage nerd guilt over never reading Othello. My copy of Michael Chabon's Maps and Legends arrived today, and based on the totally rad dust jacket my cup runneth over with irrational exuberance. The religious reading list kicks it up a notch this week as well, so I'm going to make a point of taking my time meandering through the nooks and crannies of Gladwell's hagiographic head to enjoy my (copious) free time to the fullest.

Also, this may or may not have something to do with Mass Effect 2 releasing this week and being fucking awesome.