Unexpected constraints

When Marian and I got together I used to complain that he does not read a lot. Well to be honest, he didn't read at all, preferring to spend his evenings in front of one or multiple movies or playing games. I used to complain that the computer will fry his brain. That he should be reading to increase his vocabulary and all that blah blah blah. Little was I to know that all this will be coming back to haunt me.

Recently, he has developed a certain fondness towards the fantasy genre - you know, the one with the kings and the dragons and the magic and the knights and the swords and the 14 volume books where each volume is a white weapon in most of the countries in this world. Throughout his reading saga, I have managed sometimes to pass on him some books (other than sci-fi) that I enjoyed. However, I have so far managed to forestall the moment when he would be sharing a book (877 pages in one volume WTF?!!) of his. Like this i managed to miss "Wheel of Time", a 13-volume saga that I know would have killed me.

But no more! He has been raving about "A Song of Ice and Fire" to the extent that at one point i said "Ok, I will give it a try." (if only to keep him from telling me about every chapter and every thread in the book - this strategy backfires!) All nice and dandy, he went ahead and put it on the nook (from now on to be referred to as the hippo - because it can drink so many books but still stay fit and healthy hahaha) and proceeded to bug me every time I was reading something else. To the point where now A Song of Ice and Fire is the Approved Book and the rest do not even exist. I am slowly making progress through book 2 (only 4 yay!) and this is all we talk during lunch (e.g. strategy backfire!!), and the book is blissfully free of magic and stuffs, but! I usually read more than one book at a time! Which i cannot because I am always grilled if I am reading the Approved Book :)

It has not helped me that I finally got Jensen's "What the dog saw" which is a very large and horribly conspicuous brick, and that I am also expecting Shu Hui's book - thankfully this one takes a long time to materialize.

The second book has 877 pages on the hippo. l have not looked at the third nor the forth but i expect them to be the same. I managed to finish the first one in about 2 days, but the last half day was horrible, with me literally banging my head and asking "oh when oh when is it going to like ever finish?!" I guess it's only some books that you never want to end ...