can i really read 100 books in 2009?

-
It's an ambitious goal to attempt to read one hundred books in 2009. I'm a full-time graduate student, and I work two part-time jobs. I only managed to read thirty books (and counting?) this year, but I'm setting my goals higher next year. New years inevitably call for more introspection, and reading is one of my absolute favorite things to do. Still, I perpetually find myself watching television or wasting away the hours reading blogs. I'd like to return to focusing on reading. There's now a lovely reading chair, makeshift footstool and light in my bedroom, and I plan to spend a significant amount of time in it next year. I'm a goal oriented person, and I hope setting this very public goal of reading one hundred books will help me accomplish it. My aces in the hole are that I'm taking both children's literature and young adult literature this year, and the reading lists for those classes will help push me to one hundred. If I don't make it, it's certainly not the end of the world, but if I don't try, I won't know. I may choose to read many long books for enjoyment that will deter me from this goal. As long as I'm reading more, I'm happy. Cheers to 2009.

1. Keep Your Mouth Shut and Wear Beige by Kathleen Gilles Seidel
2. Much Ado About Jessie Kaplan by Paula Marantz Cohen
3. Final Jeopardy by Linda Fairstein
4. Different Like Coco by Elizabeth Matthews
5. First the Egg by Laura Vaccaro Seeger
6. Flotsam by David Wiesner

Comments

  1. AnonymousDecember 27, 2008 at 11:22 AM

    Just remember that ALL books count, including text books. ;)

    ReplyDelete

Post a Comment

Thank you for taking the time to comment. Happy reading!

Popular posts from this blog

book review: A Dangerous Place by Jacqueline Winspear

-
Image
The backstory: A Dangerous Place  is the eleventh historical mystery featuring Maisie Dobbs. My reviews of the other eleven (plus Winspear's stand alone historical novel) are in my Book Review Database . The basics: Set four years after the last Maisie Dobbs novel, Leaving Everything Most Loved , in A Dangerous Place , we meet up with Maisie in Gibraltar in 1927 during the Spanish Civil War. She gets off her England-bound ship in Gibraltar because she's not quite ready to return. Note: this review contains spoilers about what happened in those four years of Maisie's life between books, all of which are revealed in this novel's first thirty pages.  My thoughts: Sunday I wrote about the Maisie Mail I received. These postcards appear in the book itself, along with many others. After setting the stage in Gibraltar in the opening pages (Maisie stumbles upon a dead body), Winspear recounts the last four years of Maisie's life in the form of postcards, letters, an...
Read more

book review: Run by Ann Patchett

-
Image
The backstory: After loving State of Wonder  ( my review ), I set out to read all of Ann Patchett's books. The basics: Run  is the story of the Doyle family: Bernard, an Irish Catholic ex-mayor of Boston, his deceased wife Bernadette, their adult son Sullivan, and their two adopted college ages sons, Tip and Teddy, who are biological brothers. My thoughts: I'm beginning to think Ann Patchett is my soul sister. Her writing reaches me deeply, and I've adored everything she's written. It was a special treat to read Run , the novel of hers I knew the least about going in. Although I had the framework of two of her novels and one memoir, I didn't know what to expect. Run  isn't as universally loved as some of her other works, so I was particularly curious to see how it measured up. Admittedly, Run  started off slowly for me. It took two chapters to really get into the heart of the story, but once it happened, I was hooked. One of the things I love most about ...
Read more

book review: Gilead by Marilynne Robinson

-
Image
The backstory: Gilead  won the Pulitzer Prize in 2005, the National Book Critics Circle Award in 2004, and was longlisted for the Orange Prize in 2006. The basics: As Rev. Ames nears the end of his life in the 1950's, he begins a letter to his young son because Ames realizes his son is too young to really know him. Gilead  is that letter. My thoughts: Gilead  is a novel I'm been meaning to read for years. It's a character-driven, Midwestern narrative by one of our best contemporary writers. It should be a novel I love, yet I struggled to finish it and admit I was wowed by neither the story nor the writing. Gilead  seemed almost stream-of-consciousness at first. I appreciated that Robinson jumped right in: this novel is a letter from father to son; the reader's ignorance of these two characters is not the focus. As the novel progressed, more details began to be filled in, and the reader begins to understand the characters, setting and purpose. I enjoyed the ...
Read more