- Share This Post
- submit
- 16
-
Sparkle (0)
It's a shiny new year, sitting and waiting for us to fill it up with ideas and events. Many of us do that by listing resolutions or setting goals for how we want our year to shape up. Perhaps one of your goals for the year to read more books. As you know from Kristy's excellent Good Health-a-thon post if we want our goals to be successful it goes a long way if we make them S.M.A.R.T. Something that could help you on reading path is a reading challenge (or two or three...).
I love reading challenges. I especially love planning them. I love to sit there with the challenge before me and start a list (or spreadsheet as the case may be, I'm always looking for an excuse to create a spreadsheet). First I have to decide what kind of challenge I want to do. Sometimes one will just pop before you like a temptress beckoning you toward the dark side. Except these are books, there is no dark side. This time of year there are a ton of challenges out there (see below) so you can really pick one that meets your needs. Do you mostly read fiction and want to add some non-fiction to your reading life? Or vice versa? Do you want to explore a new-to-you genre of books? Do you want to a theme? Do you want to read more foreign authors? Do you have so many unread books in your house that it's starting to scare you and make you feel guilty any time you so much look at a bookstore because you know buying more books means you are either insane or addicted or both?
Not that I'd know anything about that last one. Ahem. Where were we?
Right then, once I have my challenge down I move on to thinking about what books I want to read that fit the challenge guidelines. There's usually at least a couple. Then I start looking at online bookstores and library catalogs too see what new books I can buy or borrow. Yes! Challenges are an excuse to buy books! (Unless you a like me and are trying to buy less books in 2008...) And then, and here's where things always get dangerous, I look to see what other bloggers are reading for the challenge. So I usually start off with a fairly long list that I then have to willow down. First dibs always go to books I own but haven't gotten around to reading (they will always, without fail, be the books that are read last or not at all during the challenge). Then I go to the books I can get to the library. And then it's to the books I have to buy. Because buying books for a challenge is a perfectly justifiable reason to buy books (unless of course you are doing a From the Stacks challenge...more on that in a minute).
So, I've got my challenge, I've got my plan, I've got my books. Now all you have to do is read them. And, believe it or not, this is the part where I fail. Repeatedly. To be perfectly honest I've never successfully finished a challenge I've started. But gosh darn it I do love planning them. So what I need to work on in 2008 is actually finishing the challenges I already started. I'm holding myself responsible for that. Last year I started an A-Z title challenge and gave myself a whole year to finish it. I read about half the books. While I've made all kinds of excuses for not finishing it a large part of it was that I simply didn't really try or put much effort into doing the reading. Sure, some of the book titles I did end up having to change post-relocation (new city sadly does not have the kick-ass library system my last did) but there are a fair number of books on that list that I own and didn't read. I did not commit to the challenge. But this year I will finish my A-Z and Summer 2006 (yes, that says 2006!) challenges I signed up for but did not finish. There. I've said it here. It will be done.
Note that one thing I said above is that I created my own personal reading challenge. If any of the challenges listed below don't rock your boat don't be afraid to form one to your own specifications. If you do blog about it and I
