2008 - Introductions and Rules - 150 in '08

Here's the deal. In general, I read a lot of whatever I want to and at the end of the year I have usually read quite a lot, but can never remember exactly what I've read, when I read it, if I finished a book or got bored with it, or the number of books I've bought compared to the number of books I've actually completed. Also, my ratio of genre fiction to anything resembling anything literary is usually about 1,000:1 -- not because I don't like classics, nonfiction, etc. but because I am generally a fairly lazy reader and genre fiction makes for a quick read.

All of this needs to change.

My goals for 2008 are fairly simple:

1. keep track of what I read and when I read it
2. read more books I could consider "literary"
3. read the books that are sitting unread on my shelves because I've gone to the bookstore again before finishing all of the books I bought on previous trips
   

In order to ensure that I meet my goals, I have come up with a few reading rules that I will be following this year.

1. All 150 books must be read between January 1, 2008 and December 31, 2008 (duh).
   
2. Of the books I read this year, ¹/₃ must be books I've never read. Bonus points if I read 75, new books, but 50 will fulfill this requirement.
3. 20 books must fall into a vague non-genre, literary category that encompasses all the books I am usually too lazy to read (classics, nonfiction, literary fiction, Tolkien, etc.). NOTE: This does not necessarily mean all non-genre. I will count fantasy authors like Tolkien and LeGuin in this category.
4. If by the end of June I have already read more than 75 books, my challenge of reading 150 books will be upped to 200. The numbers in rules 2 and 3 will be raised accordingly.

That's pretty much it. I will be posting the list of books I read and monthly roundups here in this blog. I'll put up a link to my 2008 LibraryThing tag for anyone who is interested, but I think it's likely that I will be the only person who cares about anything found here.