national year of reading – Aussie Reviews

366 Books February Update

Two months into the National Year of Reading, means two months down in my attempt to read 366 books this year. That means it must also be time for an update.

So 31 days in January, 29 days in February means, by now, I should have read 60 books. And guess what – that’s exactly where I’m at! On target to get to 366 books. These are the books I read in February:

34	Come Down, Cat	Sonya Hartnett	Penguin	Picture Book
35	The Outcasts	John Flanagan	Random House	Young Adult
36	Quinn’s Riddles	Aleesah Darlison	Walker	Children’s
37	Willow’s Challenge	Aleesah Darlison	Walker	Children’s
38	Krystal’s Choice	Aleesah Darlison	Walker	Children’s
39	Ellabeth’s Test	Aleesah Darlison	Walker	Children’s
40	The Secret Signal	Simon Haynes	Bowman	Children’s
41	Poetry Matters	Ralph Fletcher	Harper Trophy	Non Fiction – Writing
42	HipsterMattic	Matt Granfield	Allen & Unwin	Non Fiction
43	Darius Bell & the Crystal Bees	Odo Hirsch	Allen & Unwin	Children’s
44	The Coming of the Whirlpool	Andrew McGahan	Allen & Unwin	Young Adult
45	Sam, Grace and the Shipwreck	Michelle Gillespie	Fremantle Press	Picture Book
46	The Bicyle	Colin Thompson	ABC Books	Picture Book
47	Tin Toys	Bruce Whatley	Random House	Picture Book
48	The Jewel Fish of Karnak	Graeme Base	Penguin	Picture Book
49	A Bus Called Heaven	Bob Graham	Walker	Picture Book
50	Vampyre	Margaret Wild	Walker	Picture Book
51	Desert Boys	Peter Rees	Allen & Unwin	Non Fiction
52	The Flying Emu	Sally Morgan	Walker	Children’s
53	Foal’s Bread	Gillian Mears	Allen & Unwin	Adult
54	The Carousel	Ursula Dubosarsky	Viking	Picture Book
55	Assault	Brian Falkner	Walker	Young Adult
56	The Red House Mystery	AA Milne		Adult
57	Matilda is Missing	Caroline Overington	Bantam	Adult
58	Bom! Went the Bear	Nicki Greenberg	Allen & Unwin	Picture Book
59	Rudie Nudie	Emma Quay	ABC Books	Picture Book
60	Equinox	Lara Morgan	Walker	Young Adult

If you are quick to count you might notice that although I’m up to 60, I actually started the month ahead, and so didn’t quite read a book a day during February. There are a couple of reasons for this, to do with school going back, writing commitments and speaking engagements. But there are also some books which need more than one day to read. For example, Peter Rees’ Desert Boys took almost a week to get through – which was well worth the effort, although it took me close to not meeting my quota for the month

As with January, I’ve linked the titles above to the reviews of the books, where I’ve reviewed them. If there is no link it means I haven’t reviewed the book – most probably because it isn’t Australian (in January there were some Australian books which I didn’t review because I was sending them to Claire to review instead).

A new month started today – that’s another 31 books to get read! I look forward to keeping you updated with my progress.

I hope you’re still celebrating the National Year of Reading.

366 Books January Update

It’s a new month, which means one month of my National Year of Reading challenge has passed. If you haven’t been reading my posts, or following my updates on Twitter or Facebook, I’ll explain.

This year is the National year of Reading here in Australia. Hooray! A whole year of focus on one of life’s great treasures. All around the country there are events,promotions and challenges designed to get people of all ages, from all walks of life reading more – and loving it! You can see details of the goings on at the official website.

So, I woke up on the first of January and thought to myself – wow, it’s the Year of Reading. I wonder if I can really make it a year of reading, and read a book for every day of the year. And before I could stop and think about it, I’d told the world that that was what I was trying to do. And people have encouraged me, so I’ve run with it. You can see my original post which explains the parameters I’ve set for myself, here.

Anyway, it’s been a month, so I thought the end of the month (or, in fact, the first day of the new one) was a good time to check in and see how I’m doing – and, so far, I;m doing fine. 31 days of the year down, and I;ve read 33 books. Here’s the list so far, with links to the ones I’ve reviewed on Aussiereviews.

1	Straight Line to My Heart	Bill Condon	Allen & Unwin	Young Adult
2	Only Ever Always	Penni Russon	Allen & Unwin	Young Adult
3	Harry’s War	John Heffernan	Omnibus	Children’s
4	Just Like That	Janet Poole	Mountain View	Self Help
5	Shadrach	Meindert Dejong	Harper Trophy	Chidlren’s
6	Nanberry	Jackie French	Angus&RObertson	Young Adult
7	Extinction 2	Lizzie Wilcock	Scholastic	Young Adult
8	The Filth Licker	Cristy Burne	Frances Lincoln	Children’s
9	Crow Country	Kate Constable	Allen & Unwin	Young Adult
10	Note on the Door	Lorraine Marwood	Walker	Children’s/Poetry
11	The Golden Door	Emily Rodda	Scholastic	Children’s
12	Lily Gets Her Wings	Elizabeth Pulford	Scholastic	Children’s
13	Animal People	Charlotte Wood	Allen & Unwin	Contemporary Adult
14	Lily Has a Secret	Elizabeth Pulford	Scholastic	Children’s
15	Button Boy	Rebecca Young & Sue deGennaro	Scholastic	Picture Book
16	I Heart You, You Haunt Me	Lisa Schroeder	Simon Pulse	YA Verse Novel
17	Froi of the Exiles	Melina Marchetta	Penguin	Young Adult
18	The Red Bridge	Kylie Dunstan	Windy Hollow	Picture Book
19	Nog and the Land of Noses	Bruce Whatley	Scholastic	Picture Book
20	How Now Brown Frau	Merridy Eastman	Allen & Unwin	NonFiction – Memoir
21	Revenge	Gabrielle Lord	Scholastic	Children’s
22	Selected Poems	TS Eliot	Faber and Faber	Poetry
23	Lola’s Secret	Monica McInerney	Penguin	Contemporary Adult
24	The Little Refugee	Ahn Do	Allen & Unwin	Picture Book
25	Cooking the Books	Kerry Greenwood	Allen & Unwin	Adult
26	Flood	Jackie French	Scholastic	Picture Book
27	City of Lies	Lian Tanner	Allen & Unwin	Children’s
28	Bilby Secrets	Edel Wignell	Walker	Picture Book
29	The Biggest Estate on Earth	Bill Gammage	Allen & Unwin	NonFiction – Memoir
30	Selby Sprung	Duncan Ball	Angus&Robertson	Children’s
31	For All Creatures	Glenda Millard	Walker	Picture Book
32	Autumn Laing	Alex Miller	Allen & Unwin	Adult – Literary Fiction
33	The Attractor Factor	Joe Vitale	Wiley	Self Help

You can see I’ve read a real range of books – across age groups, formats and subject matter. So far 7 picture books (yes, I know these are short and help my total, which is why I’m only counting them if it’s the first time I;ve read them AND I review them), 10 children’s books, 7 young adult, 4 adult fiction, 4 adult nonfiction. Lengthwise they’ve ranged from the picture books to one of over 600 pages. Some have taken more than one day to read, and one of the challenges I’ve had is to not worry about the tally so much but to really enjoy each book. It’s not a race – it’s an adventure.

I must say that the big revelation for me has been that setting myself this challenge has helped me rediscover some of the fun of reading. Yes, I;ve always loved reading, but as a reviewer with an always-large review pile, sometimes it feels like a chore – especially when I feel guilt about the size of that pile. Suddenly, in January, my pile is going down and I’ve also allowed myself time to read things not in that pile.

Onto February. I’m halfway through two different books at the moment – because I’ve decided to read a chapter of a writing book every day. And, looking at my pile, I have some great reads ahead of me in the next 29 days. I’ll update you again soon.

In the meantime, I would love to hear about any challenges you are participating in this year.

Sally

366 Books in 366 Days

Happy New Year to you! I had a pretty awesome 2011 but am really excited about the promise of a brand new year and loving that 2012 is the National Year of Reading. Also really excited about my role as local ambassador for Bunbury, WA.

I had toyed with the idea of a reading meme for the National Year of Reading, but there are so many other really good ones already that I hesitated to add another which might duplicate what was already being done.

But then I woke up this morning and had this great idea for a reading challenge for myself. It’s the YEAR of reading, isn’t it? So what if I could truly make it a year of reading by reading a book for every day of the year? That would be 366 books in 366 days (the leap year gives me the chance to squeeze in an extra book).

No sooner had I formed the idea than I was tweeting and facebooking it, so suddenly I’d made this partly formed idea into something I’d announced to the world. But hey, making it public might motivate to actually do it – or to give it a darn good shot.

So, yes, I am going to try to read 366 books in 2012. These will come from across genres and age groups, so they will range from picture books through to very serious works of literature, and nonfiction too. I’m already an eclectic reader, so don’t plan to change that too much.

However, to avoid the urge to just sit down with my picture book collection and read my way through the first 366 of those, I’m making a rule for myself that I’ll only count picture books that I read for the first time, and also review – because the time it takes me to read and review a picture book is equal to reading a much longer book.

Where possible I will review the books I read on Aussiereviews, if they fit within Aussiereviews parameters – ie I only review Aussie author or published books here, and don’t review a book if I can’t review it mostly positively. But I have also decided independently of this challenge that I need to spend a bit more time in 2012 reading stuff that I don’t plan to review – because there are so many wonderful books from overseas, and classic books, and childhood favourites and so on that I never get around to reading because of my focus on Aussiereviews.

So here’s my plan:

Read at least 366 books in 2012.
Keep a list of these, and chronicle my progress on my Nameless blog and on Aussiereviews, as well as through social media (twitter and facebook)
Review those which can be reviewed on Aussiereviews
Include as many as possible that I read because I want to (whether or not I’ll be reviewing them)
Only include picture books in the 366 if I also review them
Lastly, and importantly, I’m only going to stick to this challenge if I enjoy it. If I find myself beating myself up over getting behind, or not blogging about it often enough or whatever, I’ll stop. Reading should be fun!

I’ll keep you informed with my progress as much as possible. Would love to know if anyone else decided to give this idea a shot.

Now I’m off to do some reading. Happy National Year of Reading!