Off the bookshelf, onto the table

I am currently reading William Cronon's Nature's Metropolis: Chicago and the Great West.  It should come of little surprise to find that this is not something I'd willingly select for "light" reading and is in fact yet another book I have to read for school.  School is a lot of that, I've realized:  Books that you wouldn't otherwise read.  Of course, I'm not really complaining. I think everyone should read Polanyi's The Great Transformation at least once in their life (and as I've encountered it at least twice now, I'm fairly certain it will end up having at least a marginal effect on my eventual dissertation).  I also thoroughly enjoyed E.P. Thompson's Whigs and Hunters (though if ever there was evidence for not judging a book by its cover, W & H would be it).

For the time being I, along with several other classmates, am still trying to figure out how this all fits together under the banner of contemporary political ecology. Cronon's book (at least in my mind) is a little more self-evident. A surface reading of Thompson suggests a discussion of enclosure and property rights violations in mid-18th century England. Valid, certainly, but more useful for a historian (or an historical geographer) from my reading.

My bf once marveled at the fact that I never read. In response I pointed to my computer and the inordinate amount of time I spend online (every day of my life) for both business and pleasure.  I also pointed to the stack of books, papers, journal articles (not to mention student essays) that social scientists routinely encounter. At the end of the day I hardly have energy for more than that. It's a little sad, to be honest. There's a lot of classic literature I've never taken the time to appreciate. There are a number of books on philosophy, mythology, history etc. that are looking a little lonesome on my bookshelf and I'm more than a little ashamed to admit that my knowledge of them is procured from three line answers on Jeopardy. 

I'm hoping (one day) to get to these great works of literature but they're like so many other good things I put off in life.  Perhaps the closed structure of academia isn't such a bad thing for me after all.