I'm moving my 50 Books posts here as a permanent home, since I'm not doing much else here and yet I feel some odd compulsion to keep this blog up. Also the nifty little book tracking thing is groovy. So this I guess becomes, by default, my reading blog.
The challenge is to read 50 books in 2007. Most the years of my life, since I was about 9, this would be no challenge at all. I would have scoffed at a mere 50 books. In recent years I've found I just don't read as much as I once did, whether because of work, or because I'm too busy reading fanfic and magazines and watching TV or whatever. I tried this exercise in 2005 and read 52 books. Not as good as I'd hoped, but respectable and goal acheived. I didn't keep track in 2006, but I'd guess I read maybe 11 books in the entire year. Tragic. Reprehensible even. So this year I will strive to do better.
I've got a huge stack of unread books awaiting me, but I am taking recommendations, if anyone feels the need to share.
As I said, I didn't keep track last year (BAD ME), but here's what I read in 2005:
1. Dead Until Dark, Charlaine Harris
2. A Series of Unfortunate Events 1: The Bad Beginning, Lemony Snicket
3. A Series of Unfortunate Events 2: The Reptile Room, Lemony Snicket
4. A Series of Unfortunate Events 3: The Wide Window, Lemony Snicket
5. A Series of Unfortunate Events 4: The Miserable Mill, Lemony Snicket
6. The Life of the World to Come, Kage Baker
7. Black Projects, White Knights: The Company Dossiers, Kage Baker
8. The Persian Boy, Mary Renault
9. Butterfly, Sharon Sala
10. A Home At The End of the World, Michael Cunningham
11. Dark Angel (Night World #4), L.J. Smith
12. Spellbinder (Night World #3), L.J. Smith
13. The Visitor, Sheri S. Tepper
14. The Dangerous Lives of Altar Boys, Chris Fuhrman
15. Altered Carbon, Richard K. Morgan
16. Sisterhood of the Traveling Pants, Ann Brashares
17. The Secret Life of Bees, Sue Monk Kidd
18. A Series of Unfortunate Events 5: The Austere Academy, Lemony Snicket
19. A Series of Unfortunate Events 6: The Ersatz Elevator, Lemony Snicket
20. The Probable Future, Alice Hoffman
21. Shade's Children, Garth Nix
22. A Series of Unfortunate Events 7: The Vile Village, Lemony Snicket
23. The Second Summer of the Sisterhood, Ann Brashares
24. The Companions, Sheri S. Tepper
25. As Meat Loves Salt, Maria McCann
26. Children of the Shaman, Jessica Rydill
27. A Series of Unfortunate Events 8: The Hostile Hospital, Lemony Snicket
28. Naked, David Sedaris
29. Dancer, Colum McCann
30. The Shadow of the Wind, Carlos Ruiz Zafón
31. The Accidental Heretics (Book One of the Confraria Cycle), Annie Stewart
32. The Heaven of Mercury, Brad Watson
33. Villa Incognito, Tom Robbins
34. White Queen, Gwyneth Jones
35. The Children of the Company, Kage Baker
36. You Don't Know Me, David Klass
37. Then He Ate My Boy Entrancers : More Mad, Marvy Confessions of Georgia Nicolson, Louise Rennison
38. Seven Seasons of Buffy, Glenn Yeffeth
39. Secret Vampire (Night World #1), L.J. Smith
40. A Series of Unfortunate Events 9: The Carnivorous Carnival, Lemony Snicket
41. Harry Potter and the Half-Blood Prince, J.K. Rowling
42. Old Man's War, John Scalzi
43. Salt: A World History, Mark Kurlansky
44. Mona Lisa Overdrive, William Gibson
45. American Gods, Neil Gaiman
46. Firelands, Michael Jensen
47. All Tomorrow's Parties, William Gibson
48. White Jenna, Jane Yolen
49. The Turkish Gambit, Boris Akunin, Andrew Bromfield (Translator)
50. Sister Light, Sister Dark, Jane Yolen
51. Girls in Pants: The Third Summer of the Sisterhood, Ann Brashares
52. The Midnight Work, Kassandra Sims
I'm not sure, looking over this list, if I should resolve to read less YA fic and SF, or if I should figure I got a good thing going and stick with it.
AJAX BELL 