New Reading Challenge

I just posted my first book report of a new reading year: so, day one = 2/15/19. This year's challenge won't involve any particular number of books, like the last two (61 and 50, respectively). This year's goal is simply to make a point of reading at least a little bit every day. I am on a roll now. I just need to keep my cruising speed up.

I will also use this page to record the titles as I go, so I don't need to go back at the end of the year and do that task. (Which I have not in fact done for the 50-challenge. I'll do that now. Okay: done: turns out I read the first 15 books over the course of five months; the last 15 took me a month—because I was way behind! But I finished! Whew. Here's my list for the 61.)

I have undertaken various self-challenges over the years—several photo-a-day projects, two blogpost-a-day projects, and now two years of getting better at reading. I think I'm starting to succeed at reading more, especially when I'm not working on an editing project, which is a whole other kind of "reading," one that sours me a bit to the written word. But this year, too, I'm hoping to cut back on work, which should leave me more energy and interest for reading good literature, a good story, some good essays, or even just some beautiful picture books. Let's see how many that ends up being!


So, here's my list for 2/15/19–2/14/20:

1. Stephen King, The Stand (2/15/19)
2. Stephen King, On Writing: A Memoir of the Craft (2/19/19)
3. Chigozie Obioma, The Fishermen (3/2/19)
4. C. J. Sansom, Dissolution (3/7/19)
5. Emily Bernard, Black Is the Body: Stories from My Grandmother's Time, My Mother's Time, and Mine (3/15/19)
6. Sigrid Nuñez, The Friend (3/23/19)
7. Donna Leon, Death in a Strange Country (3/27/19)
8. Louise Penny, The Cruelest Month (4/7/19)
9. Astrid Lindgren, Pippi går på bord (4/27/19)
10. Michael Connelly, The Black Echo (5/3/19)
11. Laura Marx Fitzgerald, Under the Egg (5/5/19)
12. Pema Chödrön, Taking the Leap: Freeing Ourselves from Old Habits and Fears (5/12/19)
13. Michael Connelly, The Black Ice (7/12/19)
14. Kate Atkinson, Life after Life (8/5/19)
15. Anthony Doerr, All the Light We Cannot See (8/27/19)
16. Cynthia Newberry Martin, Tidal Flats (9/4/19)
17. Louise Penny, A Rule against Murder (9/15/19)
18. Brian Fries, A Fire Story: A Graphic Memoir (9/16/19)
19. Jacqueline Woodson, Each Kindness (9/30/19)
20. Joan Silber, Improvement (10/2/19)
21. James Lasdun, Afternoon of a Faun (10/12/19)
22. Hannah Hinchman, Little Things in a Big Country: An Artist and her Dog on the Rocky Mountain Front (10/14/19)
23. Olga Tokarczuk, Drive Your Plow over the Bones of the Dead (10/31/19)
24. Donna Leon, The Anonymous Venetian (11/13/19)
25. Jenny Odell, How to Do Nothing: Resisting the Attention Economy (11/29/19)
26. Martin Walker, Bruno, Chief of Police (12/8/19)
27. Susie Steiner, Missing, Presumed (12/21/19)
28. Michael Connelly, The Concrete Blonde (12/27/19)