Ooh hey, what book did you finish? I finished my first last week and now I'm making my way through the first Dean Koontz Frankenstein novel, surprisingly good so far.
I finished Lev Grossman's "Codex."
I watch the vlogbrothers YouTube channel quite often and John Green recommended Grossman's "The Magicians." But when I picked it up at the library, I also saw "Codex" which he wrote before "The Magicians" and it seemed more up my alley: Guy tries to find a missing antique codex that changes theories of medieval history while also playing an addictive
Myst type of RPG.
It wasn't a bad first book of 2013. I'm looking to tackle John Green's bestseller "The Fault in our Stars" and William Joyce's "Toothiana: Queen of the Tooth Fairy Armies" (part of the Guardians of Childhood series, which inspired the Rise of the Guardians movie), namely because I borrowed them from another library that I don't work at and therefore cannot hold for an infinite amount of time without fines or consequences.
It must be a fairly popular resolution this year. Several people on FB have posted about a reading challenge of some form or another. I wouldn't resolve to do it though because I know I would fail miserably. I can read voraciously for a few months and then I can go a month or two without reading anything. My interests fluctuate wildly.
I've done it twice before, this will be my third straight year. I usually max out around 26 books a year. I want to double that this year, but this is also my last year of college, sooo that might not be feasible.
The first book I finished was The Silver Chair, one of the Narnia books. I always like starting the year out with a children's classic.
Man, I never really thought of it as a resolution for some reason. I'm a member of GoodReads and they just have this app that asks if you want to take part in the yearly reading challenge and I'm usually "Yeah, sure," but hey, resolution! I actually kept a few if I look at it that way.
I go through the same reading dry spells. I read like...one book from August to October last year, then I read seven books between October and the end of the year.
I've been part of Goodreads for a couple of years as well and, I think, this is my third go at the yearly reading challenge? *ponders*
I started with 25 my first year, then went to 50, then this year is 60. It's really not a restrictive challenge and I do get some negative feedback when I say I count picture books and graphic novels and re-reads, but I believe the whole point of a reading challenge is you're taking the time to
read something that's not meant to be a quickly digested, like articles.
I do want to make it a point to read more non-fiction books. My little cousin gave me the book "The Happiness Project" by Gretchen Rubin, which sounds like a pretty interesting read. I also have Nicholas Basbanes "A Gentle Madness" to finish. I started it last year, and got a quarter into it. I hope to finish that this year. It's about bibliophiles and book collectors, it's kinda hard to resist.
As far as resolutions go, I find reading challenges to be one of the most rewarding. I hope to make it a regular YouTube vlog to keep myself on track this year.