reading is good

I am so excited about Goodreads, a site that lets you keep track of and rate all the books you have read, plan to read, are currently reading, and allows you to share all that information with your friends. Thanks to Mike for sharing the good news with me. I never joined up with friendster or facebook, and I don't take enough photos to really keep up with flickr, but this type of online social networking greatly appeals to me.

I love to read, but I have to admit I am somewhat picky. I'm acutely aware of the limited amount of time I have left in my life for reading books. (This is based on a projected life expectancy of about 93 years.) I don't want to waste any time on reading anything blah. And the fact that I am a very slow reader adds to the pressure of finding the perfect next book. Poor Mike has been burdened with my constant badgering—"What should I read? What are you reading now? If I was going to be stranded on a desert island for a year, and it was the last year of my life, and aliens were headed to earth to destroy every book ever written, what five books  would I want to take with me?"—for years. Now he never has to have an actual conversation with me again. The internet is amazing.

The timing could not be better for this, as one of my personal goals for the year is to read more. On New Year's Eve, Adam and I were tallying up the number of books we read in 2007, and I came up with a paltry seven. Seven! (And one of those was a reread.) Sol's list was close to fifty, which included a few audiobooks, but was mostly made up of books and graphic novels that he read on his own. I've wanted to get him recording the books he reads—like he does for the library summer reading program—and then writing some reviews; just a couple of sentences for each book. Maybe Goodreads could help us along with that project.

I'm aiming for seventeen books this year—half the number of years I'll have reached by the end of 2008. When I share my reading goal for the year with Adam, my ever-supportive partner in this crazy life, all he can say is, "You are going to be thirty-four this year?"

Oh yeah, I foresee plenty of time for reading in 2008.

Comments

[rishi]

you are going to be 34 this year...??!!!! love....mom#2