The Challenge: Read 50 Books in One Year

The past couple months I find I have been reading more – probably due to lack the anything even attempting to pass for entertainment on the TV. Of course, with fall coming, it occurs to me that I will soon, once again, be sucked into a near-vegetative state, as the usual array of just-good-enough-to-not-change-the-channel programming resumes.

So, I asked myself, what is the best way to keep myself motivated? The library doesn’t offer me a reward for reading 1000 minutes over the summer, like it does my kids. I belonged to a reading group for a while, but could never manage to make it to the meetings, and to be honest, I didn’t really care for the choice of books – everyone trying to choose a book more profound than the last, to prove what interesting people they really are.


I used to allow my stepson Shane one half hour of TV time for every hour he spent reading, which he found incredibly motivating … but for me, I’d probably just pass on the TV and go play on Facebook or Webkinz (I have almost as many as my daughter … let it go) or something.


I guess the goal, more than just simply reading, is: how do I pull myself away from the endless passive distractions to spend my time more rewardingly? When I do it, I find myself energized … but there are so many distractions – so much unwatched stuff on the TiVo, so many computer games to play, news websites to peruse, online shopping to do, stock tickers to check, and has everyone played their latest turn at Scramble on Facebook?

I thought maybe an online discussion group would help, so while I was rating my vacation reads on goodreads.com, I looked around for a group that might be fun and have good book suggestions as well. And almost immediately, I ran across the following: “50 Books a Year.”


Wow, that doesn’t seem that hard. So I signed up.