The Goodreads app has reading challenge menu where you can set a goal for the year. For 2015, I decided to set my goal to 55 books, or 1.067 books per week. Yikes! I thought a year was enough time to pull it off since on average, I read about 30 to 40 books per year. With all the extra free time due to the Layoff, I thought this challenge would help me exercise my gray matter but instead it stressed me out! By October, I had only managed to read 40 titles and I could feel the crunch of the holiday season approaching. Would I make it in time?
My friends threw some 100 to 200 page books my way to pad up the list which was a very welcomed respite; most of the books I have read the past year are over 500 pages, not necessarily what you want to read to make such a tight deadline. Art, science, math, statistics, love stories, sci-fi and architecture were some of the topics I covered with the first 45 books. Now that I am down to the wire, a few interesting entries like a new book from Isabel Allende and a book on Managing Martians have made it into the to-read list. Regardless, I still need 8 more books to reach the deadline.
To figure out what else was out there I decided to go to the new Amazon Book Store in the University Village in Seattle to find a few titles about video games and related subjects. The ones I purchased were reviewed under the title Books to Feed Your Inner Player which got me up to 50 books read for 2015. Now that November is almost over, all I need are five more books to call it. (FYI, Slide show contains all 55 books!)
As you can see, there is no theme to my reading list. It’s eclectic. For this same reason my friend Gabino Iglesias came up with an excellent suggestion and I agreed to purchase and review his latest novel Zero Saints to fill in one of the spots. If I am lucky, I will be able to add Flow to the list and three more finds during Barnes and Noble’s Black Friday deals. (As it turned out I did!)
Update:
Nov 30: Now I’m down to the wire. I managed to finish The Secret History of Wonder Woman by Jill Lenore to fill in entry #52.
Dec 29th: On page 25 of book #56! I made it in time. Check the slideshow for the new additions.
If anyone has any suggestions for 2016, ideas are more than welcomed! I’m willing to review books for friends too. 😉
Mrs. Enginerd - Nerd Whisperer 