I've just recently (read: in the last fifteen minutes) started going through an existential crisis. You see, I've always thought of myself as quite a Prolific Reader. I was an English major in college for Christ's sake! I worked for a literary magazine! I'm a writer!

I've always hated it when people tell me:

"You mean you read for pleasure? Oh, I wish I had time for that."

This statement is easily translated as:

"I think people who read for pleasure are weird. Why don't you just see the movie? It'll save you time, and then you don't have to bother with all those words. Besides, if you keep telling people you read for pleasure, they're going to think you're unemployed, or that you have no social life, which, come to think of it, are probably true."

I resent that. I've always been a great reader; books are a veritable addiction for me. I love books. I've always thought I was an exceptionally prolific reader, but I have been humbled by the juggernaut of reading lists, TIME magazine's "100 Greatest Books" list.

I got the list off of Miss Snark's blog and realized I've only read 16 of 100. Now, granted, these are only books written after 1923, so some of my faves, like most Edith Wharton, don't make the cut. Still, only sixteen? What have I been doing with my life? Reading too much Mary Higgins Clark in my early teens when I should've been reading Lolita or Death Comes For the Archbishop, I guess. I don't necessarily feel the compulsion to go and devour all of these books just to be able to proclaim that I've read them all---certainly, that would be kind of silly. Nobody would be impressed, anyway. But you can bet that the next time I see At Swim-To-Birds languishing on a shelf in my local used book store, I'm probably going to pick it up and at least read the back cover.

Only sixteen.