I’m a planner. I love lists, schedules, menus. I love having goals to tick off and challenges to complete.
In fact, the more, the better!
Since this is a new year and all, I signed up for a reading challenge: 52 books in 52 weeks. I started strong with a theology book (Tim Keller’s The Reason for God) and some kids’ books (Septimus Heap and The Mysterious Benedict Society). I was bogged down for over a week in Your Child’s Growing Mind, but finished up today with a chapter on encouraging the kidlets’ creativity. Good stuff, there.
Now to choose the next book.
In my library bag are:
- tons of picture books (alas, those don’t count even though I spend about an hour a day reading them aloud)
- Mister Monday and Grim Tuesday by Garth Nix
- The Good Earth by Pearl Buck
- Cod: A Biography of the Fish That Changed the World by Mark Kurlansky
My reading is all over the place, but I’m trying to make sure to hit a few categories this year: American history (this is an ongoing course of study!), theology (I’m in a book discussion group focused on this topic), education (methods, philosophy, anything and everything that’ll help me be a better teacher), books about or set in other cultures and countries, and, of course, continuing to read widely in the spec fic genre.
And I’m leaving lots of room wide open for recommendations, books that catch my eye and the following of rabbit trails.
Do you have any books to recommend?
I am a huge fan of Nick Hornby. His latest, Slam, is much less gloomy than his last two efforts, How to Be Good and A Long Way Down. I’d also recommend his non-fiction: The Polysyllabic Series is great, because it will suggest more books for you to read 🙂 I’d recommend Fever Pitch, but I doubt you’re enough of a soccer fan to enjoy it.
Oh, and you can’t read 52 books without at least one of them being P.G. Wodehouse or Georgette Heyer 🙂
Ohhh, I love Georgette Heyer. I haven’t read any of her books in ages, though! I should find a copy of Sylvester, my favorite.
Would you believe I have not read any Wodehouse? O.O
You absolutely have to read Wodehouse. It is a nice, light, and hilarious read, something for a break between ponderous tomes.