Question #1 & Lovecraft

As you may know, there is a trend with publishers to create huge volumes that contain the entirety of an author's works and sell it.  For example, you can get all of Jane Austen's books in one mammoth volume or all of the works of Lewis Carrol.  I have a copy of H. P. Lovecraft's fiction.  Both the cover and the title page simply read "H. P. Lovecraft  The Complete Fiction."  It's published by Barnes & Noble.  It is a massive hardcover book.

This presented me with a bit of a conundrum.  I had read one Lovecraft short story before and it was enough to encourage me to read more,  but this was a bit more than I had been expecting (I received it as a Christmas gift).  Also, I like reading books all the way through.  That is to say, once I start reading something, I don't like stopping before I've reached the back cover.  As I usually read novels or non-fiction I have never run into a problem with this before. To read it cover to cover would be a massive commitment and I wasn't sure that I wanted to devote that much time to it.  On top of that, as I had only read on story by Lovecraft previously, I wasn't sure if I really like reading Lovecraft.  I hate not finishing a book once I've started it, so even if I wound up hating Lovecraft, I would likely force myself to keep reading til the end.  Also this book, as a collection of short stories, wouldn't have a continuous narrative to keep me going.  Instead the multiple breaks would encourage me to put it down.

I tried to come up with some creative solution to this self-imposed dilemma.  As I wasn't used to reading collections, I had to find a new way of thinking about my reading practices.  My solution was to treat it as my break book.  Every time I finish reading a book, I take a brief "break" by reading one of Lovecraft's stories.  This way the massive book is broken into nice, manageable segments and I don't have to live with the guilt of not reading it.  In a sense, I'm always reading it (its been over a year now, but I'm over halfway done now).

I'm not sure how much this had to do with meaning per se, but it's the closest thing I could think of.  I may not be thinking of the stories themselves in any different way, but I had to think about the manner in which they were being presented and my approach to them. 

-Eric