So I’ve decided to break my long blog hiatus with a new reading project/challenge. Seems appropriate. It’s been one of the most consistent features of my blog since the beginning.
This is inspired by two things:
- I recently re-read the Harry Potter book challenge posts. (They start here)
- I watched this video.
What I liked about the old challenge posts was the every day nature of them, a quick summary of where I was. However it also reminded me how brutal some of that period was – all reading all the time until I was sick of it.
Similarly with the video above I liked the idea of it, of someone re-finding a love a reading. But I don’t have the kind of job or reading speed where I can do a book a day.
So I decided to construct a challenge that was about reading every day, about completing a fixed number of books in a short-ish time and would involve blogging every day with the kind of updates I did for the Potter challenge.
So the challenge I’m setting is for 7 specific books (see below) to be read by 7th April. This is the release date of Amongst Our Weapons – the next book in the Rivers of London series.
Without further ado, here’s my list of books with, where appropriate, reasons for picking them:
Doctor Who and the Abominable Snowmen – a novelisation of a “lost” classic Doctor Who story. Quite short (~35,000 words) and on the list because I’d already started reading it.
False Value – book 8 in the Rivers of London series and the next unread one for me.
Thud! – my next unread Discworld book, number 34 overall. I’ve had various plans to finish the DW series since before Pratchett sadly passed. I initially was going to make that the challenge (it’s only 8 books) but I wanted some variety in my list so it’s only the next three.
What Abigail Did that Summer – book 9 Rivers of L. A novella rather than a full novel.
Wintersmith – Discworld book 35.
Wired Love – a short novel (~50,000 words) I’ve been trying to read for a couple of years. To be honest I added this so I didn’t have two DW books back to back. More about this when I read, and blog about, it.
Making Money – Discworld #36. The next (last?) Moist Von Lipwig book. I enjoyed Going Postal so this seemed like a good “landmark” to aim for in lieu of not completely finishing the series (yet!).
As I said I already started reading Abominable Snowmen. However I only read for about 10 minutes last night before falling asleep, so today/tonight will be my first “official” reading day and I’ll do my first post tomorrow.