Competition

For about the last month, I've been contemplating taking part in the 52 books in 52 weeks reading challenge. I've done if for the past three years, but I haven't successfully completed it since 2009 (though I did come close last year. I was only 2 books shy of the goal). I keep going back and forth, thinking about taking time off to just read with "no pressure" and then changing my mind. I actually kind of like having that list of everything I've read, and it's kind of cool to go back and see what I was reading this time last year. You can kind of track my obsessions that way--such as when I discovered C.E. Murphy and read just about everything she'd written over the course of three weeks (still need to track down the Inheritor's Cycle). I did read several short stories this year, but since I'm only counting actual standalone books for the list, I didn't add them.

Now I find myself three weeks into the new year, and still debating the matter. I'll probably still keep the list, but I probably won't number it and I probably won't track it on the Ravelry group as I have in the past, just keeping the one here on the blog (the link is in the sidebar, if you're curious). The tipping point? I overdid it on the knitting, causing a tendonitis flare up. No knitting. No writing (this is the most significant amount of typing or writing of any sort I've done in about three days, if not longer). What's a girl to do?

Knock a few books off her reading list, of course.

My progress isn't as impressive as I would like, or even what I would have been in college, but I finished two novels in the last two days and I'm most of the way done with a third. I'm trying to get through everything on the bookshelf that I haven't read yet. Next up: Son of Neptune by Rick Riordan.

I probably won't "compete" as such. But I do want to read more this year, and if I can, take more time to write book reviews. I think I might also put together a "to be read" list of books that I want to get through this year. Right now I'm itching for a really good piece of nonfiction. Something that will spark my imagination. I love history, culture, and textiles, especially books that combine all three, and lately I've been wanting to read up on the 1920s and the Victorian era. Maybe I'll look for historical novel the next time I'm at the library.

But first I have to get through my list.