I enjoy reading novels as an escapist kind of diversion. I once devoured thrillers (Ludlum, Clancy, Morrell, Cussler), but in more recent years I have favored older hard-boiled detective novels by folks like Raymond Chandler, James Cain, and Dashiell Hammett. These guys wrote in the early to mid 1900s, when explicit sex scenes and profanity were taboo in literature. It’s nice reading books without all that junk (only general immorality, skullduggery, and senseless killings). Right now I’m reading Hammett’s The Thin Man, written in1933. Before that, I read Patricia Highsmith’s Strangers on a Train (1950).

I find myself being oddly purposeful in how I tackle books. For example, Highsmith’s book was 280 pages. When I start a book, I always note how many pages until the end. My first goal is to get through the first 100 pages. Then I feel I’m committed to the book; I can’t back out, but must finish it. My next goal is to get to the halfway mark. So after reaching page 100, I set my eyes on page 140. Then I focus on the point where I have just 100 pages to go–in this case, page 180. And then it’s just a matter of counting down, ten pages at a time.

This would seem to get in the way of escapism, this quest for The End. But that’s how I am and have always been. My own private little neurosis.