Posts Tagged ‘challenges’
By Belynda, August 20th, 2009 in Other | 1 Comment
Tags: ayn rand and her bullshit, bucket lists, challenges, crazy ideas, guardian, Reading
Not so recently (six months ago? More? 2008?? Yeah that sounds right. Who the hell remembers.) The Guardian put out a bucket list of the 1,000 books everyone should read before they die. At first I sort of rolled my eyes, because unless you’re this girl, it sounds like an impossible feat. But let’s really look at the numbers… obviously you’ll have to adjust the math for your age:
I’m 28 years old. Barring car crashes, swine flu, attacks by flying monkeys, cataclysmic war with one of the countries we’ve pissed off, or the rapture… I say that I should have enough eyesight, hearing capability, and mental acuity to read/listen to audiobooks until I’m 75. Call it 78 and I’ll hope for the best. That’s 50 years to read 1,000 books, or about 1.7 books a month. What the hell, I’m a go-getter.. I’ll read the whole second book and put it into the principle. Two books a month isn’t a ball-breaker right? I’m averaging about 5 a month for my New Year’s resolution self-challenge.
So fine. I can read the Guardian 1,000. It’s like eating any elephant… one bite at a time. And yes, yes, I know, I’m not the first person to dream this up. This dude and quite a few others beat me to it. And they’re trying to do it in 10 years, at 4 books a week. (My first question is, how friggin’ rich is THIS kid to have time to read 4 books a week… but I digress.)
Anyway, I’m going to take the slow-and easy, and read other stuff I want to read that’s not on the list, too. I’ve read 22 of them so far, and a few (like Don Quixote and American Gods) I’ve sort of picked up and put down in the middle. I’m just glad Atlas Shrugged isn’t on there. That was enough to kill someone. (Fuck you Ayn Rand, you’re dead and your Objectivist bullshit is languishing on a bargain rack somewhere, so ha.) Anyway, with a nice little dent in the list, I’m already feeling like a champion.
Now… I thought I saw some weird ones on a list today… such as How to Have Sex Like a Porn Star by Jenna Jameson (Ed says he approves of my reading this one) and Ron Jeremy: The Hardest Working Man in Showbiz I think someone made some adjustments to the list for their own amusement. Hell I might read those anyway!
Anyway, I think I’m going to pick up this not-so-little challenge just for the fun of branching out and reading some things such as PG Wodehouse and Agatha Christie… things I might not otherwise pick up.
Anyone else down?
By Belynda, August 20th, 2009 in Other | 1 Comment
Tags: "Ristening", 100 Classics Challenge, audiobooks, challenges, GoodReads, Reading, Writing
This year, I decided to do away with that dogshit resolution everyone makes about eating right and getting in shape, and decided to spend my time in a more constructive way.
I got some pretty serious heckling about the fact that I never found time to read. Between a full time job and three college classes at night, I didn’t really feel like doing anything but watching television and sleeping. But as someone who really does love to read (unfortunately I can’t do it three or four pages at a time on the can ::ahem!::), I took heckling to heart, and started picking up some audio-books** to occupy the spare minutes in my day (driving, groceries, laundry and the like.)
**Side note: The audiobooks of course then sparked the now-legendary debate of what is technically “reading”… if I’m allowed to say I “read” a book a listened to… issues of academic snobbery… and of course Beth’s clever compromise of calling it “Ristening” (ever the diplomat!) Nothing’s ever easy, is it? But whatever, I took the NEW heckling and used Ed’s guilt at having teased me to open an Audible.com account. I win 
So in January, I decided instead of promising myself that I was going to go to the gym three times a week and eat ridiculous salads and only drink, I was going to read/listen to a book a week. 52 books in a year, to make up for the paltry 13 from the year before. I was already off to a good start: When I left my job at the end of July 2008, I never turned on the television while I was home. I was finishing/editing a book at the time, and found that the best use of the quiet in the house was to write and read. I took a break from the job hunt to read “Love in the Time of Cholera” (I’d had it hanging around ever since I fell in love with the movie “Serendipity”) and looked up 5 hours later, wondering why I was hungry and why it was getting dark out.
I did a little thumb through my Goodreads list yesterday and realized that by month end, I will be a good 7 books ahead in my goal! Woo! If I can wrap up my current shorter selections, The Cellist of Sarajevo and Let the Right One In, House of Sand and Fog and maybe fit in a few quickies on my 100 Classics list (Camus’ The Stranger is only like 150 pages) then I should be a 41 by the turn of the calendar page.
I thought today of accelerating my goal to 100 books… but then I’d have to quit my job.
Hmm… actually…
The List So Far (parentheses denotes in-progress):
(House of Sand and Fog)
(The Cellist of Sarajevo)
(Let the Right One In)
The Sun Also Rises
Mother Night
Candide
Slaughterhouse-Five
The Pillars of the Earth
The Strain (The Strain Trilogy, Book 1)
The Painted Veil
The White Tiger
The Sociopath Next Door
The Road
Fear and Loathing in Las Vegas
Little Bee: A Novel
Beloved
Crime and Punishment
The Catcher in the Rye
Dexter By Design (Dexter, #4)
The Trial
1984
Girl, Interrupted
Three Case Histories
Madame Bovary
Fool
The Unbearable Lightness of Being
Hotel on the Corner of Bitter and Sweet
Nights in Rodanthe
Anointed: The Passion of Timmy Christ, CEO
Never Let Me Go
Brick Lane
The Rose Variations
The Hitchhiker’s Guide to the Galaxy
Everything Is Illuminated: A Novel
Girl with a Pearl Earring
Eat Pray Love
Billy Budd
The Virgin Suicides
Brave New World
Waiting for Godot
