The books of yesteryear

Esther: It is not January yet. Or if it is, my year doesn't officially start until my family goes back to Guatemala in a few weeks. Maybe I can get off the crazy train, and start over.

Until then, my calendar is locked shut, and I won't believe anyone who tells me otherwise.

Sooo.... books anyone?

2010 is the first year I kept track of everything I read, which sort of blew all kinds of illusions I had about myself. I thought I read hundreds of books a year. I am a reader after all. I set my goal to match Bethany's...one book a week for a total of 52 books a year. Since most books can be read easily in less than a week, it sounded like no problem. Unfortunately it didn't work out that way. It's like eating a Coldstone ice cream and finding out later it had 2,700 calories in it.... same feeling, opposite numbers.

Another false assumption? Bethany and I thought we'd read mostly the same books. I would have put the shared number of books read around 70%.

Turns out our reading lists only had 13 books in common.





Anybody have reading goals for 2011? I'm a bit wiser this year, and am keeping it at 52 with snobby assumptions. Lets hope my e-reader will continue to make my reading life easier.
3 sprinkles of fairy dust:

I thought I read a ton, too, until I started writing down every book read... that was many years ago, and I'm only in the 200's right now. So I read a lot less than I think. I do read in clumps, like I was on a Philip Pullman kick for awhile and read everything he ever wrote in a manner of weeks. Then I'll spend a month on a book that I'm maybe not quite so "into" (currently Anne Rice's The Feast of all Saints, lent with high recommendations by a friend so I feel I MUST finish it). I read the newspaper every day, and magazines, and blogs... so I do READ all the time, but not always BOOKS. I don't have reading goals- my lifestyle is too unpredictable- but I would definitely like to read more this year. I read voraciously as a youngster and then not so much during college when I had to read CONSTANTLY, but none of my reading was for pleasure. I've never really gotten back into reading for pleasure the way I used to. As a teenager, I'd lay across my bed to start a book in the morning, and next thing I'd know, it was six hours later, my Mum was calling me to help with dinner (she probably thought I was working on my algebra that whole time), and I was finished with a book! A book a day! Wow....


I'm inspired by the fact that y'all kept track of what you read. I have no idea how much I read... so that's my goal this year: keep a record.


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