Basically, my goal is to read 50 books this year.
I am going to count by page number though, at 260 pages per book. That equals 13,000 pages as my goal for the year.
But I want a simpler count that counting to 13,000 page by page, so I'm still counting by "books", and every 260 pages I read will be a "book". So long books can count as multiple ones (a 520 page book would count as two) while short stories can be counted in this manner as well.
I've used a calculator and figured that on average the goal will basically be about 37 pages per day (technically it was 36-point-something, so I just rounded up). This way I can easily keep track of how I'm doing at any point in the year. For instance, by tomorrow, January 3rd, I know that the goal will have been to have finished about 111 pages so far this year (37 times three) and I can measure my progress against that. Maybe I can get a ticker to put on this site that automatically updates every day to tell me how many pages would already be finished if I'm reading 37 pages a day. I'll see.
I'm not going to worry about different types and lengths of pages. Whatever the paper book or ebook tells me, that's how many pages I count. Keep it simple.
As far as a TBR list, I am having one this year. I thought about not having one, to keep it simpler, but I find I like the idea of having some books that I want read by year's end.
First, I'm part of the mobileread literary book club which should have around 12 selections this year, and I'm part of the mobileread general book club which should have around 12 selections this year. So there's already 24 of my 50. The January book for the general book club, Black Rain by Masuji Ibuse, has already been chosen, so I have that and 23 more to-be-determined books on my list. If a book is selected I've already read, I won't read it, but otherwise I'm going to try to read all the selections this year, whatever they may be...
Of the remaining 26, I split it in half and want to pick 13 now and leave 13 open to my whims. The 13 I picked now come from my longer TBR list. One goal I have separate from this reading challenge is to read the complete works of Lewis Carroll, so I'm including six now. I've already read The Annotated Alice which included both Alice books, so you won't see that on my list. Of the rest, I chose his novels and then his earliest and most well-known other books to round out the list. After I read those, I'll eventually get to the rest of this writings, including possibly his letters and diaries.
With six thus chosen, that left seven to still be picked now. This last year, trying to keep up with the book clubs, I've left off reading quite a few books to work on newer selections instead. :p So I've accumulated a bit of a half-finished pile. Of that pile, I'm adding A Room with a View and Anna Karenina to my TBR list for this year. I would love to finish everything half read this year, but I thought it prudent to stick to two for now from the book clubs.
There is also another half-read book, Middlemarch by George Eliot, that I've been working on for years! I'm almost exactly halfway through and have been meaning for over a year now to get back to it and finally finish it. It's not the only one older than a year that I haven't finished, but it's the one I want to tackle this year the most, so it's also on my list for this year.
Next comes Ulysses by James Joyce. There may be books I've not finished yet for various reasons, but there is rarely a book I stop reading because it's too perplexing. Well, Ulysses is one of that rare list, actually I think the only book on that list, heh. I tried to read it years ago, got about 50 pages in, and just had to put it down and say to myself that I'll tackle it again after some years and maybe I'll be more in a position to absorb it better. I didn't used to have a TBR list per se. Ulysses changed that and was and has been book #1 on the list ever since the list was started. It's now time to try it again, and this time I may get either a companion or study guide to read along with it if need be. But either way I'm determined to read it this year!
Finally comes fantasy. I didn't plan it that way and I'm not a huge fantasy fan, but the last three are all fantasy. The first is the second in the Hunger Games trilogy, Catching Fire. I liked the first one alright, it was a nice light read, and with the film coming out soon I thought it'd be nice to finish the series before someone accidentally tells me what happens in the last two books. Also, my TBR list is pretty heavy, lots of heavy books and classics, so it's nice to include a lighter, faster and newer read to keep things diverse. I actually wanted to put more than one lighter book on my list, but with so few slots it didn't happen. Well, there's always the book club selections and my whims!
The last two are A Game of Thrones and the second book of the Kingkiller chronicles, The Wise Man's Fear. I wanted to read A Game of Thrones last year before I watched the series, but it never happened (it was so so close to winning a book club month, but ah well...). I never watched the series, still waiting to read the book first. I have read the first chapter and liked it.
The first Kingkiller chronicle was a book club selection that I wasn't very excited about (actually I think it was the book that barely beat A Game of Thrones!) but I slogged through and fell in love with it. I thought it was just a great, great book and so I want to read the sequel sometime this year.
So that makes 13. I would be done now, except that I had forgotten that some of us at mobileread had said we'd do an Iliad read this year, actually this month. Woops! So, there's one of my whims.
Whew! That was a post! :D
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