Day -70: What I'm doing.

I decided in July, in the wake of Puppygate, that I should read all the Hugo best novel winners. And since I am 42 years old, and I drive in cars and get sick, that I should make sure I do it before I die. So I gave myself 20 years.

Then I decided to add all the books (or at least the first book in each series) in the "inspirational reading" list in the Dungeons & Dragons Player's Handbook. 

Then I decided to add a few other things, major books like Ulysses and Cryptonomicon. 

Then I decided it was silly to be arbitrary to only put some books on the list when I knew I would read other books. I was keeping Ulysses on and Star Wars off, but where would I put Hornby and Coupland and Murakami? So I added most books that I own and plan to read sort-of-soon.

So I now have a list of 179 books, totaling more than 75,000 pages, which will grow because they'll keep giving out Hugos and in many cases I'll continue the series, and because I'll keep adding books that I feel like reading.

I'm not, historically, a big book reader, but when I'm 65 I'll care more about what I've read than what sitcoms I watched. So now I have a spreadsheet and a target. And now I have a blog, because while I'm mainly active on Facebook and Twitter, those are terrible for looking back at things, and I like to look back.

My spreadsheet includes a snapshot of how many pages are on it, because I am also interested in how it will grow. My guess right now is that by the end of the 20 years, it will be 150,000 pages, which is 7,500 pages a year, which is huge.

But this year, I made a one-year reading plan. And it's working. And it includes Capital in the 21st Century, which was hard, and Infinite Jest, which is hard. And the plan is more than 4,000 pages, and when I throw in other stuff I've read it'll be 7,000 pages, but I'll make it. So I think a huge pile of mainly sci-fi and fantasy is doable. I can do it.

In the next few posts I'll talk about my three lists, what's on and off, and about my weird definitions of "book" and "month."