So I realize that at first glance, you might be thinking, how hard can it be to read a bunch of books in a few years? You may wonder why I'm making such a big deal about this. Well, get you calculator out kids, flex your inner mathlete and let's do some calculations, shall we??
You may not have noticed, but there are 4 links on the righthand side of the page that include my 4 book lists, with which books in each list I've read so far crossed out in red. And while, yes, there are 4 lists, there are not actually 400 books to read. There are some books that appear on multiple lists (and if I was smart I would do those first to maximize my mileage out of each book, right??), so technically across the 4 lists, there are 326 unique books. So far, I've read 38, 32, 20, and 18 books across the 4 lists, but that actually only represents 73 unique books. Meaning, drum roll please....I have 253 books left to read. So that's roughly 36 books per year, so about 3 books per month.
AND, because some writers are so gosh darn sneaky, there are a few entries on each list that actually represent multiple books. Yeah, I'm talking to you John Dos Passos with your triology or YOU Anthony Powell with your 12 (!!!) book series.
So it is looking like a daunting task, yes? And again, for my own sanity's sake, I have to mix up reading classic stuff with current fiction, so I can have some time away to actually want to pick up a lit classic again. So maybe I'm being a bit ambitious. Or maybe I'm condeming my eyesight to hell for the next 7 years. Or maybe it's the crack. But either way, I should probably be getting my nose back in the book rather than making trying to count books in Excel spreadsheets. So off I go.
BTW, I have also added a link on the right for the book I'm currently reading. Right now, it's the Pulitzer Prize winner from 2010, Tinkers, by Paul Harding. Should be a quick read...only 195 pages. And they're little-ish pages. With kinda big font. I'm encouraged. To work I go.
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