Reading Update #6

Once again I am pressed to read as many books as I need to in order to finish this program. I keep finding more and more books I want to read! However, I think I have found a way to make it more manageable. Each month will focus on a different subject*!

Foe August, since I started learning Greek and am also taking Teaching English classes online, I am focusing on Language Arts Books from my list. There are five, including the requisite Bird by Bird, so I still need to read about one book every four days to finish.

September will focus on religion, including the three major religious texts (not gonna lie, there may be a bit of skimming involved to finish this one in time!)

October will be my favorite month, focusing on Travel, History, and Food related features.

November will attempt to cover a wide variety of Science and Technology.

Finally, in December I will end with a few Business, Psychology, and Self-Improvement type books to empower me for the new year.

Oh yeah, and somewhere in there I’ll find some time to read fiction!

*I determined the subjects based on the tags used in my library’s online catalogue on OverDrive, where I will check-out the eBooks (since real libraries are still closed).

Don’t forget to check out my ever evolving reading lists!

Reading a Book a Week??

If one assumes that to read 52 books this program, not counting the 4 major religious texts I also need to read, I should have read almost 20 books by now (one a week).  Instead I’ve read only 5… I need to pick up the pace!  I may have to either include some I read prior to starting the program, OR possibly extend my graduation date.  Some graduate programs take two years, right???  On the plus side, this task has cost me no money so far – thanks to my three library cards and amazon prime!

 

Books Finished:

• No Baggage: A Minimalist Tale of Love and Wandering (Non-Fiction)
• Smile When You’re Lying: Confessions of a Rogue Travel Writer (Non-Fiction)
• The Art of War (Classic)
• A Man Called Ove (Modern Lit) – Review still to come
• Babel No More: The Search for the World’s Most Extraordinary Language Learners (Non-Fiction) – Review/Quote still to come

Next To Read:

• Geography of Genius: A Search for the World’s Most Creative Places from Ancient Athens to Silicon Valley (Non-Fiction)
• The Four Tendencies: The Indispensable Personality Profiles That Reveal How to Make Your Life Better (and Other People’s Lives Better, Too) (Non-Fiction)
• The Greater Journey: Americans in Paris (Non-Fiction)
• Far Flung and Well Fed: The Food Writing of R.W. Apple, Jr. (Non-Fiction)

 

I have found that I very much like non-fiction books, but I’m struggling a bit with classics and religion…

 

Links to my complete proposed reading lists here:

Non-Fiction
Classics
Modern Fiction

Task #8: Reading

For some reason, I feel like this task is the heart and soul of the program.

Read at least 30 non-fiction books and 20 classic novels.

Cost: approximately $750 (can be reduced or eliminated by using the library).

I’m working on some reading lists for this that I will post later on the site.

Some questions arise though, like what defines a “classic”?  I’ve read so many of the so-called “Great Books” already.  I want to include “Modern Classics” and some recent fictional literature.  How about 30 non-fiction, 10 classics that are old enough to be free licensed e-books, and 10 newer novels that have won literary awards.

For those of you who are good at math, this is roughly one book a week for the year long program!  And that’ts in addition to the already assigned religious texts and two books that will be assigned later in the course.  I think I might start now with a “summer reading assignment” just to get a head start!

I was also thinking I should make myself do a one paragraph book report on each one. That would make for good blogging, right???  I will at least try to include some of my favorite quotes from each book – so you know I am actually reading them!

My Cost: Free – I have library cards in two states and a Kindle!