22 and counting

Since 2006 I've been keeping count of how many books I read and what months I finish them in. If you know me, you know I have a lot of rules and this list of books can not escape from the rules either.

One rule is that I mark down the month that I finish the book in. This doesn't seem like a big deal except for when I end up finishing a book on the 1st of the month. The last few days of a month may be devoted to reading a certain book but if I'm not paying attention and don't finish it before the month ends, that book gets included in the next's months tally. If it's the last day of the month and I'm even anywhere close to finishing the book I will devote as much time in that day as I can to finishing it.

I ride the bus to get to and from work (a 50 minute ride each way) and I am able to get a lot of reading in this way. Yesterday Missy saw me reading and she knows I keep track of the number of books I read each year so she asked what number I was on. When I told her 21 or 22 she said, "You're behind!" Last year I read 52 books, which was a huge accomplishment. My goal had been 40. This year, I didn't start out with a goal and as of right now I'm hoping I can make it to 40. I'm on my 23rd book of the year but I have high hopes for catching up. This brings me to my second rule of the book list. Missy wanted to know if I read short little books of encouragement with lots of pictures and a few words, could I count them on my list to help me catch up. She was kidding, of course, she knows that I wouldn't do that. I had a hard enough time counting the two Harry Potter books I re-read last summer in prepartion for book 7. I felt like I had to read extra just to make up for counting them. While I might write down books I've re-read (which doesn't happen often), I really am only counting new books.

In keeping track of the number of books I read in a year I find that I go through cycles. March is a low month, maybe 1 or 2 read. And July is a high month, last year I read 9 books and this year I've already read 5 and should be able to read 2 more. I tend to slow down again around November. After Thanksgiving I like to read Christmas-related books so I keep a list of which ones are available from the library so I can request them in time.

I'm not in a race to read the most books ever. I know some people read over 100, maybe even close to 300 a year. I'm not striving for that but the nice thing about keeping track of what you read, maybe not how many you read, is that you can look back and remember a certain time in your life and relate a book to then. It can sometimes make the memory of the book even sweeter.