Feb 20 2007
The Fifty Book Challenge
My library proposed this challenge right after New Years: can you read 50 books in a year? My first thought was “of course I can” because I assumed I was reading far more than that already. But upon thinking about it a little more, I realized I have no idea how many books I read a year so I decided that it might be fun to start keeping count.
Apparently, my library is not as cool as I thought since a lot of bloggers all over the world are taking this on so its not just a local thing.
My library only counts a book as “read” if you write a review of it, which I think is total rubbish. I usually only feel like writing a review if I feel really strongly about a book one way or another and if I really wrote 50 book reviews in one year, how would I have time to read?
The rules are pretty loose. Audiobooks and ebooks count as well as regular books. There is no page minimum but I think it’s fair to just say that if you have to ask yourself if it was a book, it probably wasn’t.
My little cousin, when I was talking to her about this, asked why you just can’t say you read 50 books since no one checks up on you. I am going to chalk this up to the fact that she is young and does not yet understand the concept of setting personal goals and meeting them just for fun.
I am usually reading several books at once, myself, so the order of these will be a little off since some I was reading at the same time. (I keep a book upstairs by the bed, another downstairs to read while I am eating meals, and an audiobook on my computer).
I have also been trying to read some stuff out of my comfort zone with this challenge so I threw in some stuff I normally wouldn’t read like thrillers, romances, “women’s novels,” 2 graphic novels (which I may have to add to my comfort zone as they were sweet) and a mystery. Not all of them are finished yet so I will only add them to the list when they are done.
I am going to make each book a separate entry with a few words about it. If anyone else wants to join in the fun, please do! We all read anyway so it will be fun to see what my friends are reading and maybe try some of the stuff that they liked and visa versa.
(As this is the first time I have sat down to write all the books I have read already down, prepare for a ridiculous number of entries all at once. Sorry!)
Hillary is an award winning playwright, fiction and non-fiction author best known for her play, The Love of Three Oranges which has been performed around the world. A Script Frenzy and NaNoWriMo ML, she loves connecting with other writers no matter what their experience levels. For the business side of blogging, publishing and selling, visit Hillary at The Whine Seller. See a complete list of Hillary’s blogs and books here.
