2010 TBR Challenge

January is the best time to set goals and join challenges, so even if I already have a personal reading challenge for 2010, I thought of joining another one. I figure it’s got no harm to join a reading challenge on top of what I have because it just adds to the books on the first one.

So here is my list for the 2010 To Be Read (TBR) Challenge. Here are the instructions for this challenge, taken from the link above:

** Pick 12 books – one for each month of the year – that you’ve been wanting to read (that have been on your “To Be Read” list) for 6 months or longer, but haven’t gotten around to.

** OPTIONAL: Create a list of 12 “Alternates” (books you could substitute for your challenge books, given that a particular one doesn’t grab you at the time)

** Then, starting January 1, read one of these books from your list each month, ending December 31. )

(Click the link above for more details and an FAQ)

This should put some structure in my picking of books, kind of like how using a posguys barcode scanner has specific instructions. :) Here’s my list:

  1. Persuasion by Jane Austen
  2. What I Talk About When I Talk About Running by Haruki Murakami
  3. The Twelfth Night by William Shakespeare
  4. Vanity Fair by William Makepeace Thackeray
  5. Wicked by Gregory Maguire
  6. Mother Teresa: Come Be My Light by Mother Teresa, edited by Brian Kolodjiechuk
  7. Sense and Sensibility by Jane Austen
  8. Alice in Wonderland by Lewis Carroll
  9. Peter Pan by JM Barrie
  10. Jane Eyre by Charlotte Bronte
  11. A Room With a View by EM Forster
  12. Where Angels Fear to Tread by EM Forster

If you’ll notice, most of them are classics — how else would I get myself to read classics if I don’t put them in a challenge like this, right? ;) I haven’t got an alternate list for this one yet, but I have a feeling I’ll do the same — put classics in, if only to force myself to read them. :P

Let’s see how this will go, shall we? I’ve just started on Persuasion — I should start reading a couple of pages a day to really get into the story. :P

Reading Challenges

Books (c/o sxc.hu)When the year 2007 ended, I made a big realization: I hardly read books for that entire year. It sank in during National Novel Writing Month of 2007, where I had a hard time writing my story because I had a hard time finding the words, and the only thing different for that year was I hardly made a dent on any of my to-be-read pile.

I think the main reason why I didn’t read as much then was because of work…oh, and maybe laziness. So, I figured, as 2008 came, that I will set a reading goal to motivate myself.

I set out to read 50 books in 2008. I also added a reviewing resolution, to review half of the books I’ve read. I didn’t reach my goal to read 50 books, mainly because I got lazy again by the middle of the year. I managed to review a lot of them, though.

In 2009, I set out to reach the 50 book challenge again, and this time I was determined to meet my goal. And I did — I think I managed to reach the 50 goal by mid-2009, but I didn’t stop reading then. I read up to 70 books last year, the highest number of books I’ve read in a year.

In 2010, I thought of bringing it up a notch. So, my 2010 reading challenge is:

Read 100 books within the year.

I managed to reach 70 last year, why not add 30 more? :) I think it’s pretty doable, and I don’t think I’ll be having my nose buried inside a book for the entire year.

I also had to add a bit of specification on this challenge, to prepare myself for National Novel Writing Month 2010:

Read 20 fantasy books.

Believe me, I don’t read fantasy books as much as I should. I’m more of a chicklit book lover…but let’s put that in another post.

And another specification:

Read 10 classic books.

I hardly read classic books too, and again…that will be for another post. :P

So one more time, my reading goal for 2010:

Read 100 books, 20 of which should be fantasy, and 10 should be classics.

So what about you? What are your reading goals for 2010?