Sep 04 2007
Some Reflections on the 50 Book Challenge at the (almost) half way point
When I the librarian first mentioned this little exercise to me, I poo-pooed it. Fifty books, I scoffed, I read that in a month, let alone a year. Why is that even a challenge?
In fact, nearly every one of my friends that I mentioned it to had the same reaction. One friend said to me, condescendingly, You don’t understand. I read a lot. Like 50 books wasn’t even worth entertaining as an idea. Even my 10 year old cousin informed me that she had already read 50 chapter books this year in February (a claim I think involved fuzzy math since it has taken her 2 months to finish Prisoner of Azcaban).
Feeling much like all of these people, I decided to keep count of how many books I read in a year, just to be able to scoff at the librarian next time she brought it up. Mostly, because so many people scoffed, I started to suspect that we were all using fuzzy math and really had no idea of how many books we read in a year.
Here I am at 33 books read. I am a few chapters into book 34 (Prince and the Pauper) and books 35 and 36 are on my desk (The High King and Stardust). It’s September and I have 17 books left. That’s more then 4 books a month just I have to read and we are going into the busy holiday season.
I am always reading a good two books at a time as I keep one downstairs to read during solitary meals and another upstairs to read when my computer is taking too long. I am also usually working an audio book at the same time. With all due respect to the friends and family who scoffed, I read a lot, certainly an above average amount of books, and I also read very fast which lets me whip through more books in less time. Yet here I am at only 33 done in September. I am genuinely not sure if I am going to be able to meet the goal I set out.
I suppose I could have picked shorter books (my average book is about 400 pages), included all the books I had to read for work or included things like the two Tick graphic novels that I read twice each they were so funny. I suppose I could have cheated and padded my roster with books I read years ago. But I wanted to do this legit. I wanted to genuinely see how many real books I read for leisure in a normal full time, working year because I, like the people I talked to, felt that 50 was a pathetic number of books to read in a year. Boy, was I wrong.
As I sit here on my 33, I feel like the people who scoffed at me owe me an apology. Or at least owe it to own up and try it for real next year. If they really and truly meet their 50 in February, then awesome, but I don’t see how that is possible unless you are unemployed, have no friends and family to speak to and only read 3 chapter kids books, to be honest. I am not saying that the 50 is an impossible number. But its certainly not something to poo-poo and dismiss as being too pathetically easy to be worth your time.
There was a study that came out a few weeks ago that 1 out of every 4 people don’t read a single book in a year. Even the people who do read, read an average of 4 books a year. Here is the article about it if you want to see for yourself.
Now, I know I run with a much more intellectual crowd then most people. My aunt reads books that are way over my head even and even the least brainy of my friends reads well over the average number of books. I am not trying to sell you guys short at all and, yell, maybe you’ll kick my butt. But, I am suggesting that, next year, you pony up and keep count. I think you will be surprised with the results.
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