I Read Books... Sometimes

So I was over on my brother-in-law Scott's blog yesterday and he was talking about all the books he'd read over 2009. He'd "only" hit 44 (which he said was low in comparison to George W. Bush and I thought was incredibly high). I began to wonder how many books I'd read and knew it was no where near 44. Seth said I'd probably be surprised and that I'd be up around 20. No way. I said I'd be lucky if I could find 10. Sadly, I was right. Sort of. I was able to name 9 books I'd read all the way through. If you count the 450 pages I read of War and Peace, you can round that out to 10 books. Here's the list in no particular order: (Um, Scott, I'm going to rip off your rating system *Ok **Good ***Great)

***Eat, Pray, Love by Elizabeth Gilbert

***Death, Taxes, and Leaky Waders by John Gierach

**Love Walked In by Marisa de los Santos

*A Most Uncommon Degree of Popularity by Kathleen Gilles Seidel

**The Call of the Wild by Jack London

**The Little Lame Prince by Dinah Maria Mulock Craik

**White Fang by Jack London

***The River Why by David James Duncan

**Goat Song: A Seasonal Life, A Short History of Herding, and the Art of Making Cheese by Brad Kessler

:-P (That's the sign for BORING) War and Peace by Leo Tolstoy

Now, to be fair, during the time I was reading War and Peace, it was the only book I read. I could not get into it and found it incredibly boring. For the most part, instead of supplementing my reading with something else, I slowly chugged through it... usually at less than 1 chapter a day. So those several months were unusually low in books. 450 pages of War and Peace is easily equal to like 2000+ pages of a normal book. So there... I'm not illiterate.

Although, Scott did light a fire in my belly so to say. I really could read a lot more than I did last year. So, I'm going to set a GOAL. That's right... Me, the hater of goals, is making one right now. By this time next year I want to have read at least 30 books. I know, this number may be low for some, but that's at least a couple of books a month. That's quite a bit for me and I think it'll be pretty challenging.

This Counts, Right?

I decided that I needed a confidence booster to keep me on track with my War and Peace. It's hard reading forever and still feeling like you have so much left. I was beginning to feel like I wasn't accomplishing anything.

I needed to finish a book. Any book. I needed a short break from War and Peace that would refresh my initiative and drive to finish about 1000 more pages. Sigh. So, I went to the book shelf and scanned the available selection.

When I was about 8 years old, I got a box set of classic children's books for Christmas. I actually remember opening the set of books because I'd purposely saved it as the last gift I would open. It was a really heavy present so I was excited to open it. To be honest I was a bit disappointed when I tore off the wrapping paper and stared down at a set of about 12 classic novels. Books. I set them aside with all my other gifts and feigned excitement anyway.

I don't know if I read any of those books as a kid. To me the writing looked really small, like it would take me forever to finish just one. I was a bit overwhelmed, so I just didn't read any of them. I kept them on my bookshelf to look at and feel guilty about for years and years. I still have all those books today. I hate to admit that I still haven't read all of them. In fact, I think I've only read one. White Fang. But I have a goal to read every single one of those books. There really are some good classics in there.... Call of the Wild, Journey to the Center of the Earth, Black Beauty, Treasure Island, Swiss Family Robinson, etc.

So as I was standing there looking at my bookshelf for an easy read, I saw the book "The Little Lame Prince" by Dinah Maria Mulock Craik. It was one of the books that came from the box set. I picked up the book and scanned the pages. It was short... 100 pages. The words looked big (well, compared to War and Peace). Bingo. We have a winner.

I read The Little Lame Prince in about 2 reading sessions. I was actually quite entertained by it! I really liked it! It had a good moral and was easy and enjoyable to read. And best of all, I finished it! It's easy to accomplish your goals when the bar is set really low. That's my secret.

I guess in conclusion I will just say two things: The Little Lame Prince was a good book. I recommend it. And... if you're getting discouraged accomplishing a big goal, accomplish a really easy little one for a quick boost.