2013 Reading Challenge

Every year for the past 4 years I've set myself a reading goal; the last few years I've set a goal far higher than I should have (usually 100 books). I do read a lot, but when I am busy with work and or school commitments I feel guilty about reading for pleasure and will often go for weeks without touching a book. For that reason this year I decided to set myself an easy goal so that if/when I manage to surpass it, I'll be thrilled! 

In 2010 and 2011 I tracked my progress on a Livejournal account that I've had floating around since high school; last year though I finally got around to joining good reads and I tracked my 2012 progress on there. I'm going to be doing the same thing this year.

Just a very small selection of my 2012 books (Wait a minute! There's a book in there from 2010 (White Cat) & 2 from 2011 (the Pearl North books)! Might be time to review my disarrayed shelving!)

This year I hope to read at the very least 52 books that I haven't read before; or 1 new book a week. I've already decided that to motivate me to keep up this pace, I'm going to run a feature I've decided to call First Read Fridays here on the blog. First Read Fridays will start next week and they will be book reviews of whatever book I've read over the last week, with the caveat that it has to be the first time I've ever read the book.

Talking about disarrayed shelving (because I've run out of bookshelves!) take a look at what I have to choose from for my 2013 reading challenge!

There are 6 piles there, each about 18.5" in height (yes I did get out a tape measure). What that means is that if I were to stack these books in one pile (which I wouldn't be able to do given the height of the room they're in) I would have a pile that reached about 111" in height, or  approx. 9.25'. For reference I am 5'10".

I probably should've chosen a book from this pile as my first book for the year, but instead I am reading a library book. Casino Royale by Ian Fleming. I became a fan of the James Bond movies in the latter part of 2012 so I decided to give the books a try as well (since I usually prefer the book to the movie); but according to the great people over at Book Riot I may soon be regretting that decision. 

To find out for sure whether or not I'll regret tackling the literary 007 you'll just have to come back for next week's First Read Friday to read my review of Casino Royale.

Have a great weekend everyone, and happy reading!
-- Ren