Books, Books, and More Books
This year my goal was to read 100 books between March (when I started blogging) and December 31st. While that's not going to happen, that's no reason for me not to dream big for next year. My goal for 2012 is 120 books, which averages out to 10 books per month.
Because There Are Never Enough Challenges In Life
In addition to challenging myself to read 120 books, I have a few personal challenges that I'd like to do next year. I'll be continuing to work on my 1 Million Pages challenge, but I'm also challenging myself to read more non-fiction (I know it seems like I read a lot of that already, but I really would like to read even more), as well as more books written in the 1960s and 1970s. I have a huge obsession with books from those two decades, like One Flew Over the Cuckoo's Nest and Breakfast of Champions, and would love to get through a huge stack of them in the coming year.
Now, for the rest of you, I have a challenge in the works that everyone can get in on. I'm tweaking the details at the moment, but here's the basic gist:
This challenge will require participants to pick one country they've never visited and read books throughout the year that have to do with that country. They can be any type of book--travel, history, novel, culture, play, etc.--and can be from any time period in that country's history. I'll be posting the actual challenge details next month once they've been finalized, but for now I leave you all to start considering which country you'd like to spend the year exploring.
Everyone Loves a Read-Along
Frank Herbert's Dune is one of my favorite novels of all time. Yet, even though I own the entire (original) series, I've only ever read the first book. Next year I'll be reading one book from the series every month in January, March, May, July, September, and November and I'm inviting everyone to join in. Maybe you've always been curious about the series, maybe you've seen one of the movies based on the first book and thought "The novel has got to be better than this crap," or maybe you've got a sci-fi challenge going on and you need books to add to your reading list. Whatever your reasoning, the Dune read-along is for you.
"But, Gabe," I hear you saying, "what about the other six months?" Have no fear, dear reader, I have a plan.
For the months of February, April, June, August, October, and December, I'm doing a read-along of a different color. I'm (tentatively) calling it "Gabe's Big Ol' Book Club" and it's exactly what it sounds like. Each month I'll be picking a massive book (you know, the really intimidating ones that we keep saying we'll read and never do) for participants to read and discuss. I've already got the books picked out but there would be no fun if it weren't a surprise.
Look for more details on both of these read-alongs in December.
Busy Work
To make sure that I've always got something to blog about even when I'm behind on reading, I've got a few things that I'm planning to do on a regular basis next year. Assuming that Grimm and/or Once Upon a Time stay on the air, I'll be reviewing those shows on a weekly basis (my reviews of last week's episodes are coming, I promise). I'm also going to make up for my dismal participation in the Books to Movies Challenge by reviewing as many of the films as I can that have been made from books that I read in 2012.
Other than that, it'll be pretty much the same as it has been. I'm thinking of doing a redesign of my blog but I haven't made a final decision on that.
I have a few more reviews to do for books that I read months ago and I'm going to finish my current read (which I've been stuck on for a week for various and sundry reasons) so that I can move on to other books. I probably won't meet all of my goals this year but, hey, there's always next year, right?
-Gabe
Oh man, all your challenges sound awesome and I don't think I can not participate in any of them so it looks like I'm in for a busy year! I especially like the book club idea, I can't wait to see what you've picked out.
ReplyDeleteI am so excited for next year, that it's ridiculous. I'll probably post the book list for the the book club the second week of December. I have to plan out the reading schedule for all of them, so that gives me a couple weeks to do that. :)
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