The Great Bookshelf Challenge and Other Bookworm Problems

This is my book shelf. It was purchased at Office Max or one of those office supply stores that I love so much. It's cheap, portable and I've had it since high school. I would say it holds roughly a tenth of my books. Maybe. I have a lot of books.

I love to read! I've spent nearly the last ten years of my life paying West Chester University thousands of dollars for two pieces of paper that show the world just how much I love reading and writing and analyzing reading and writing.

And yet, I get into reading slumps occasionally. I don't know what it is, but I just get distracted. I'm not into the books I try to read. I set them down and forget about them. I read magazines with too many pictures. I watch TV. The horror!


Well, no more of that. I genuinely enjoy reading far too much to not make a concentrated effort to do more of it. Not to mention, it does go hand in hand with writing. A few summers ago, Tom and I went to see one of my favorite authors, Junot Diaz, speak at a book festival in Washington, D.C. Very entertaining speaker as well as writer, if you ever have the chance to see him or read any of his stuff. Anyway, he fielded some questions from the audience and a budding young writer of about twelve asked him what to do when faced with writer's block. His answer? Go read ten books. If you have no ideas what to write about after reading ten books, read ten more. This may have sounded a little daunting to her, but it sounds like sage advice to me.

Back to the bookshelf. The books on there are quite a mishmash of subjects and genres. This is because when choosing what books to put on there (as I said, I have a lot more than that little thing will hold) I decided to mainly stock it with books I haven't yet read. And a few that I have, but just like having around. I later entered myself in a contest of my own design: The Great Bookshelf Challenge. You can guess the parameters. Read ALL the books. That's why I put them there, right?

I started this close to a year ago. The first book I read from the shelf was On Liberty by John Stuart Mill. Just a little light reading to get me started. (That's sarcasm in case you aren't familiar with the dense and wordy essay) I've knocked a few books off the list, but I can't say I've been diligent with it. One problem is that most of the books are not novels. They are text books or other non-fiction type books. I like those, but I need some fiction in there to give my creative mind a chance to relax, too.

Here are a few books from my bookshelf I am currently reading.

Another light read

The revolutionary before he was a revolutionary.
Just a kid on a bike.



Not actually part of the challenge,
 but recently added to the bookshelf anyway.
Because why not?

 

I will list my bookshelf challenge at the bottom of this post. It's long, about 54 books / magazines. I had read a few of them before the challenge started, but they are listed on there anyway. One of the most fun things of any to-do list is the things that are either super easy to do and check off OR, even better, a few things you already did and get to check off at the outset. You may call that cheating, but I don't. I call it motivation.

 

In addition to trying to get through some of my bookshelf, I am reading a few other books. But to be honest, they just aren't doing it for me. They are good, don't get me wrong. I'm just not as absorbed in the stories as I'd like to be.

 



A wedding gift from my in-laws.
Red-hatted ladies and wedding drama.
Definitely a new genre for me



Best nerd magazine ever.



If you are looking for some uplifting short stories,
do not read Hemingway



When I read a really great book, I lose sleep. I lose valuable time in my day because I can't put the thing down. Yet, I also try to slow myself down. Because I know how sad I am going to be when I get to the end. And I will re-read books. My copy of The Brief Wondrous Life of Oscar Wao (by Junot Diaz, who we discussed earlier) is literally falling apart from me reading it, and insisting others read it, so much. I now have it signed by Mr. Diaz and have therefore contemplated buying a new copy to read and lend out, thereby preserving what little integrity is left in that poor binding. This is how you know you are a book nerd.

Excited to start reading The Fault in Our Stars.
More excited than Amber was about having her picture taken.

So, here's where you come in. Since I know you, reader, have at least some appreciation for the written word, I am assuming you have some favorite books. What are they? What should I read? What books moved you? What books made you laugh out loud? Or cry? Or get angry? Anything that draws out that kind of emotional response I consider a successful piece of writing in one way or another.

I love recommending books to people. Feel free to ask. I didn't want to turn this into a book review, but I'm always happy to lend and recommend and discuss books. Way happier than I probably should be. But I want recommendations, too.

Thanks again for joining in to my ever growing to-do list. One of these days I will get to start reporting on stuff I've gotten done. Eventually.


The Bookshelf Challenge: (in no particular order)

- Life of Pi by Yann Martel
- The River of Doubt by Candice Millard
- Destiny of the Republic by Candice Millard
- Be the Man by Chris Easter
- One by Richard Bach *
- This Side of Paradise by F. Scott Fitzgerald
- 1Q84 by Haruki Murakami *
- The World's Religions by Huston Smith *
- This is How You Lose Her by Junot Diaz *
- The Cider House Rules by John Irving *
- Kafka on the Shore by Haruki Murakami *
- Discipline and Punishment by Michel Foucault
- The Language Instinct by Steven Pinker
- How to Avoid Lawyers by Edward Siegel (kind of a joke, this is actually a hollowed out book, which we used to carry our wedding rings in for our ceremony!)
- The Road by Cormac McCarthy
- Journey to Ixtlan by Carlos Castaneda *
- If They Give You Lined Paper, Write Sideways by Daniel Quinn
- A Million Little Pieces by James Frey *
- Story of a Girl by Sara Zarr *
- Modoc by Ralph Helfer
- Short Novels of the Masters ed. Charles Neider
- Foundations of Capitalism (another hollowed out book)
- The Living Sky by Ray A. Williamson
- What Matters Most is How Well You Walk Me Through Fire by Charles Bukowski
- Is Everyone Hanging Out Without Me? by Mindy Kaling *
- Comfort Me With Apples by Ruth Reichl *
- Slaughterhouse Five by Kurt Vonnegut *
- On Liberty by John Stuart Mill *
- The Stranger by Albert Camus *
- Gross Limericks by Julius Alvin
- Siddartha by Herman Hesse *
- The Motorcycle Diaries by Ernesto Che Guevara
- Great Dialogues of Plato tr. W.H.D. Rouse
- The Story of My Experiments With Truth by Mohandis Ghandi
- Western Philosophy: An Anthology ed. John Cottingham
- On Writing by Stephen King *
- Teach Yourself Calculus (that's a bold statement for someone who barely got out of Algebra 2 unscathed)
- The Cannabis Companion by Steven Wishnia *
- The Journal of Economic Perspectives Spring '93
- Cross-talk In Comp Theory ed. Victor Villanueva
- Writer's Market 2011
- Incognito by David Eagleman
- Leaves of Grass by Walt Whitman
- Falling Into Theory by David H. Richter
- Structuralism and Post-Structuralism for Beginners by Donald D. Palmer * (bonus section on Deconstruction! Score!)
- The Postmodern Turn by Steven Best and Douglas Kelner
- Waiting for Superman ed. Karl Weber
- National Geographic - August / September 2012 and June / July 2012
- Pizza Today 2012 (May, July, August, October, December) *
- The Norton Anthology of Theory and Criticism 2nd Edition
- The Pillars of the Earth by Ken Follet
- Nutrition for Dummies by Carol Ann Rinzler

Titles with an * have been read in their entirety.

There you have it, The Great Bookshelf Challenge. Daunting, but I like it. The hardest parts are those anthologies of Literary theory and criticism. They are NOT quick reads, not for me anyway. But, they are some of the ones I am most interested in reading. Or rather, finish reading as they are mainly from college and grad school, so I have read sections of them in the past.

I will keep you all updated as I check off books. Now with my blog for some accountability maybe I will feel more motivated to work harder on this. Maybe.