Wednesday, January 12, 2011

Less Is More - My 2011 Reading Plan

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.

You'll notice I said plan, not goal, in the title of this post. 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 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.

What are your reading goals this year?

5 comments:

  1. Good plan! I, too, have a bit of a book-buying addiction. But, I also have a reading addiction, so it somewhat balances out. I want to read more than I read last year, but I'm not wanting to read just to check off numbers...I love books far too much to see them as unchecked boxes!

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  2. It is hard isn't it? We see, we want, we buy. And then the bookpile grows but reading time tends to shrink during certain stages of writing a novel, especially when we revise.

    I'm determined to act a little less like a book hoarder too, but stick to a book a week as my reading goal. I tend to not make enough time to read, and I think this is a very doable goal.

    Angela @ The Bookshelf Muse

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  3. I have several books on pre-order too, but you just made me remember that I have The Girl with the Dragon Tattoo and The Passage sitting on my bookshelf. I definitely need to read those before I buy more. :)

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  4. Gah! 100-book goal. That's staggering. I just read when I have time, altho I think I need to make a little more time for it, so I really know what's being published these days. :)

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  5. That's a great looking stack of books! I'm embracing the not counting idea this year too! Right now I'm reading Rampant by Diana Peterfreund and next on the list is Across The Universe by Beth Revis.

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