2008 Reading Goals

This is the cute notebook in which I have been recording all the books I read since 1996. Oh how I wish I had started this earlier as it is so much fun to browse through it now and again and see not only how much I read in a year but what struck my fancy at the time. For those of you who have children who enjoy reading - set them up with a cute notebook to record everything they read. You'll never regret it.

Each year I start a brand new page and since 1999 I have also been writing down the date I finish each book. In 2001 I hit a record high of 82 books read. That was the year I joined the PW Book Club in Santa Rosa - a great time with great women discussing a wide variety of books.

Fast forward to 2007 where cross-stitching all but took over my life and my reading hit an all time low of 28 books including the re-reading of the first 6 Harry Potters.

My stitching goals for 2008 have been set (more about that in an upcoming post) but now it is time to set some reading goals.

Thank you Jaimie http://lavenderandlacestitches.blogspot.com/ for inspiring me to increase my reading this year and leading me to The Pulitzer Project site (link in sidebar under Stitching and Reading Groups). What a great idea to actually read all 81 prize winning books at your own pace.

So here they are - my 2008 Reading Goals. They are actually very simple and certainly very do-able.

1. Every other book I read will be one which I already own but have not read (Sorry HP you do not qualify). Our own library contains a wide spectrum of books bought throughout the years. We must have bought them because they appealed to us and now it is time to get my money's worth out of them.

2. Out of every five books I read at least one will be a Pulitzer Prize winner. We own a number of them and I have read about 10 but think a complete fresh start is in order and I will re-read these along the way.

3. The other two books in every five may be anything that strikes my fancy.

For anyone who is interested these are the winning books which I have read.
2003 - Middlesex (Eugenides)
2001 - The Amazing Adventures of Kavalier & Clay (Chabon)
1995 - The Stone Diaries (Shields)
1992 - A Thousand Acres (Smiley)
1983 - The Color Purple
1972 - Angle of Repose (Stegner)
1961 - To Kill a Mockingbird (Lee)
1940 - The Grapes of Wrath (Steinbeck)
1939 - The Yearling (Rawlings)
1937 - Gone with the Wind (Mitchell)

Now I'm off to the library to choose my first Pulitzer. When I come home I will add the names of my first five book choices to this post.

Home again and ready to share the titles of the first five books.
"The Moonstone" Wilkie Collins - own book (01/30)
"The Bridge of San Luis Rey" Thornton Wilder - PP winner 1928 (01/10)
"Into Thin Air" Jon Krakauer - own book (02/08)
"A Thousand Splendid Suns" Khalad Hosseini - borrowed from Sandy (01/24)
"The End of the Affair" Graham Greene - own book (02/01)

Enjoy the remainder of your Sunday and have a good week.