Hello, 2011!

Although I’ve been blogging elsewhere for four or five years now, this particular blog turns a year old at the end of this month! I started it because I was reading more and wanted a place to write all my bookish thoughts. I also had a goal of reading 50 books in 2010, a goal I’ve made for the past 2 or 3 years, but never stuck with.

Well…last year I read 72 books! I started out with about a book a week, but as the year progressed, so did my ability/obsession to devour books. I was already a pretty fast reader, but lately I’ve been averaging about 3-4 books a week (I also watch lots of movies, so I think 3-4 per week is as good as it gets). I don’t think I’ll be able to keep going at this rate when the semester starts and I get back to teaching, but I’m gonna keep trying! That said, I’m going to keep my goal for 2011 at 50 books. I’m sure I’ll surpass it again, but if I do fall behind, I don’t want to have to sacrifice quality for quantity.

A big reason I read so much this year is because of all the challenges I signed up for. I’m doing a bunch of challenges again this year, but with a couple of exceptions, I tried to only sign up for challenges that give me a lot of room to choose what I want to read. I don’t want to feel like I have to read something. These are the challenges I signed up for:

• A to Z Challenge
• A Year of Feminist Classics
• E-Book Challenge
• POC Reading Challenge
• Pulitzer 1s Challenge
• Take a Chance Challenge 3
• What’s in a Name? 4

A lot of them allow me to read books I already want to read, or force me to read books that help me accomplish my long-term goals (like reading all the Pulitzer winners). There are also a couple of challenges that began last year and end this year:

• 1% Well-Read Challenge (started 4/1/10, ends 4/30/11)
• Cinco by Mayo Challenge (started 9/15/10, ends 5/5/11)

There’s only one “challenge” that I think is way too ambitious for me: the TBR Dare. From now until April 1, I can only read books from my TBR pile. Like most bookworms, I have more than enough unread books on my shelfs and on my nook to keep me busy until April 1 (and then some), but the itch to acquire more books–from the library or otherwise–is always there! I’m pretty sure I can last until the end of February, but that’s pushing it! 😉

Other goals for 2011: keep up with reviews! I’m horrible at this. I either start reviews and don’t finish them, or just don’t write anything at all until way after I’ve read the book (I am a pro at procrastinating). I also want to stay on top of my book quote tumblr, where I started collecting of all my favorite passages from books. I like having all my favorites on hand to browse through, but I suck at actually adding in the passages! Ah, well. We’ll see how that turns out.

I also want need to read more non-U.S. authors. I read a lot of books by POC in 2010, but overall my reading is still extremely Western-centric. For instance, I signed up for BrownGirl’s ongoing Reading Africa Challenge (one of my long-term projects), and I didn’t even read one book by an African author in 2010. That’s just wrong, and I’m going to work on balancing out my reading in 2011.

Finally, I have one more goal that I’m going to try really, really hard to follow through with…socialize more! I swear: if you comment here regularly or tweet with me from time to time, I can almost guarantee that your blog is on my Google Reader; I’ve just always been more of a lurker. I’m like this in real life, too. Bad, bad habit. I’ve gotta talk more!

Happy New Year and happy reading, everyone! Hope it’s better than 2010.