books i will read before the New Year

Strange as it may sound, I have always been a "simultaneous reader"... I usually have 3 books that I'm actively reading at ANY given time, spread across the house so whenever I feel the urge, I don't need to exert my lazy bones too much.... I also can't resist buying books that I "have to have" and each time I walk into a Crossword or Om Bookstore, I walk out with a couple of books and a cheshire cat grin... the strange kick I feel while standing at the billing counter, the anticipation of penning down the date and place of purchase on the first page as soon as I get back home is incomparable!

I usually read each night until my head starts bobbing and eyes get droopy... sometimes I fall asleep with fingers still curled around the pages, wake up an hour later and continue from where I left off... at others, a kind soul switches off the lights and removes the book from my unconscious clutches as discretely as possible... nonetheless the time I devote each day to such leisures is never commensurate to my speed of impulse buying and hence, my backlog of "things-to-read" has increased exponentially.

The reason I'm writing this down is so that I can no longer make excuses to myself and/or fool myself into thinking that I'm doing justice to my bookshelf! So here's my list of "backlog books" that I shall finish before New Year (it sure helps that I have holidays from 19th Dec!):
~The Agony & the Ecstasy by Irving Stone... am exactly halfway through this as on today!
~Notes from Underground by Fyodor Dostoevsky (umm... a lil spellcheck there would help!)
~Collected Short Stories by Anton Chekhov
~Indian Fiction vol 1

Also, I must begin reading these books before I usher in the New Year:
~Siddhartha by Herman Hesse
~Ground Beneath Her Feet by Rushdie
~Feluda vol 1 by Satyajit Ray

Whoaa!!! Check ME out getting all ambitious and "organized"... it's strange to have a list for recreational activities but somehow, this is a reassuring list...unlike my 10 AM task-list on the right-corner of my Outlook window each morning... it feels warm and comforting to know what a blast I shall have in the next one month... and now that I've written my "list" down, I'm gonna quickly hit the publish key, lest I make any changes...