Saturday, January 1, 2011

Fat Book Reading Challenge





I am taking my inspiration for this challenge from the 2011 Chunkster Reading Challenge (check it out, I heartily endorse it even if I can't participate directly!). The basis of the challenge is to commit to reading anywhere from 4-8 books that are at least 450 pages long, and some of the books at some levels of the challenge have to be 750+ pages.

I want to do this but I mainly read on an e-reader, and the Chunkster calls for dead-tree books only. To keep the spirit of the challenge, I am choosing only books that also have a physical edition that has 450 pages or more.

My self-challenge, inspired by the Chunkster Challenge, is to read 8 books of 450+ pages in 2011, of which 4 will be 750+ pages.

I don't know all of the books I will be choosing but I know that one of them will be Outlander and at least one will be one of the longer Dickens books, perhaps Bleak House or Little Dorrit.


Happy 2011!

Okay, folks, this is where I start working on this blog thing seriously. My reading new years resolutions:

1. Read more books, less blogs and computer ephemera

2. Review all books read here.

3. Build ties to the book blogging community where I've been a passive viewer for so long.

4. Participate in some reading challenges.

5. Come up with some theme days for weekly blog posts. Under consideration: a day to look back at old favorites, a day for simple lists, maybe down the road doing interviews with authors or other people involved in book publishing.

6. Use this blog to get the word out about less well known authors, especially indie authors whose work I like.

7. Write a reviews policy for that hoped-for time when people will be approaching me to review their books.

8. Read one canonical classic a month, 12 for the year total. Undisputed Great Works such as Hawthorne, Dickens, Austen, etc.

9. Read one work of non-fiction a month, 12 for the year total.

10. Read one work per month recommended by another blogger/reviewer, that I otherwise would not have considered or known about, 12 for the year total.