Wednesday, January 12, 2011

Confessions of a Book Junkie

I admit it. I'm a book junkie. I see books I haven't read lined up on a shelf and I get excited. They're like tiny Christmas presents wrapped up in pretty paper. Each one holds a whole world that I can slip into and discover. And like Veruca Salt I want them ALL and I want them NOW. And that's a problem. If books were food, I'd be 200 pounds overweight.

So this year I've come up with a plan - not a goal, but a plan. I do have reading goals, mainly, to read a few classics. (I started Great Expectations before Oprah chose it for the book club.) But my PLAN is to dig deep into my massive TBR pile. I got a bit overzealous with the book buying last year, and a bit overly optimistic about how much free time I would have. (This is just some of the books I got in December of 2011 - only two are ARCs.)




Last year my goal was to read 100 books. Up from the 80 or so I read in 2009. I thought it would be simple. I'm a fast reader, so two books a week would be no problem. I started off great but then writing, and critiquing became more important and I got WAY behind. I think I finished the year at something like 44. So THIS year, like my Sister in Scribe Kristi, I'm not going to count books. I'm just going to read them.

My rule this year is that I'm not allowed to buy ANY new books (save for a few must have pre-orders I placed last year) until I've read at least 20 of the books I already own. If this takes me all of 2011, so be it. Um. I hope.

What are your reading goals this year?

8 comments:

Jess (The Cozy Reader) said...

Not buying books is a great goal! I try to follow this rule too because I just have too many books that I've either accepted for review, won, received as gifts, or even purchased that I need to read!

I MUST buy that OMG! I need that book though every now and again. Such as Shadowfever by KMM that's coming out on the 18th. ;)

Good luck with this goal! You've got some great books in that picture.

Yat-Yee said...

"I'm not going to count books; I'm going to read them." Love it!

Misty Waters said...

I'm not a counter, but now I'm curious about how many I DO read. I go months sucking them down and then months just writing. I'm totally going to start tracking just for kicks.

BK Mattingly said...

My goal is just to read also :) I decided not to count because my schedule is too crazy to figure out what a reasonable number would be.

Monster of Books said...

Good Luck :)

BTW you received The Stylish Book Award on my blog :)

Donna K. Weaver said...

The number of books you read could depend greatly upon the length of the books. I just finished Brandon Sanderson's "The Way of Kings" which has 1001 pages and is not a light read. Very different from "Anna and the French Kiss". =D

Kathi Oram Peterson said...

I really like your goal. In fact, I think I'll adopt it. Thanks!

kah said...

I decided to stop counting books and set a goal of reading at least one chapter of something per night/day. It usually ends up being right before bed and if it's good I read more than one chapter. So far it's working well. :)

Those look like some great reads in that pic!

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