In 2007, I undertook a little competition put on by my library called the 50 Book Challenge. The challenge is a simple one: read 50 books in a year. Audiobooks, podiobooks, and good old paper books all count. The only restriction is, if you have to ask yourself if it counts as a book, it probably isn’t one (like I wouldn’t count a single comic book but a longer graphic novel might totally count).

When I first decided to do this two years ago, I actually scoffed at my librarian and joked I probably read 50 books in a month. In turn, a lot of people that I talked to about this told me it was stupid for them as they always read more than 50 books in a year. To everyone who thinks that, let me just take this moment to tell you that 50 books is way more than you think it is. I speak as someone who reads both very fast and just about constantly and I was hard pressed to hit my 50 books within the mark. So don’t be so fast to assume you are already meeting it.

The main reason I didn’t do the challenge last year was because one of the “rules” set by my library for doing this is that you have to write a review of each of the books you read. I don’t always have much to say about a book and I really hated having to write even a few sentence reviews so that really deterred me last year and even the year I did do the challenge because I would stall listing the books I had read because I wasn’t in the mood to review it. But, this year, I have decided to just go ahead and do the challenge and just not write reviews of more than one word unless I feel really strongly about something. I reject your rules, library, and substitute my own.

Why do I want to take the challenge again this year?

• To read more. Pretty simple, that.
• To read different things. For some weird reason, when I feel like I am reading books for a reason like this challenge, I tend to read those kinds of books that I always put off that are either out of my comfort zone or that I suspect are just good for me. If makes me read a wider variety of things than I normally would for some odd reason.
• To keep track and count of what I read. By the end of the year, I have forgotten both what I read and when I read it. I liked having a record of everything I read over the last 12 months.

I only decided to do this a few days ago but, luckily, the extra long holiday vacation allowed me to front load this year with a lot of books so I am a little ahead of the game.

So far in 2009, I have read (in fancy widget form):

If you hover your mouse over the widget, you can read my comments (in pale blue) if I wrote any. I like this little widget because I can update it as I go so there is always a list of everything that I have read in this challenge so far.

I also cannot promise that I will be listing these books in order as I go. I have a habit of totally forgetting books and then adding them later out of order so, you know, sorry about that.

Anyway, I encourage you to take this challenge on, even if only to show me how many over 50 books you read in a year. I for one hope to be over 50 books when all is done but we’ll see. October through the end of the year tend to be brutal so I make no promises. But I am already 11 books in so its looking good at the moment.

If you are doing the challenge and posting your books on your blog or other website, throw the link in the comments so I can watch your progress and get some ideas for stuff to read.

You may also enjoy these related posts. . .

• The Fifty Book Challenge
• Where have you been?
• My 12 Step Guide for Succeeding at National Novel Writing Month (NaNoWriMo)