Eryn's Notebook

2008 challenges

Here are my goals for 2008:

Get through my TBR pile and read at least 50 books in 2008.

1. The Boy Next Door (finished Jan. 9; purchased from Borders)

2. Girls on the Verge : Debutante Dips, Drive-bys, and Other Initiations (finished Jan. 13; from TBR pile)

3. The Kite Runner (finished Jan. 22; from TBR)

4. Sellevision (finished Jan. 27; from TBR)

5. 32Aa (finished Feb. 3; from TBR)

Loving it

So I used to hate to read. OK, maybe that's not entirely true. I was a lit major (basically anyway ... why did I think being an English major would be more about editing ... and who but me would want to be a proofreading major anyway?) and had to read sooo much for my English classes, plus all the textbooks I had to read for my other classes. So I read magazines if I had any free time. Then, I started working at a newspaper where I basically got paid to read for 40 hours a week. So who wants to go home and read then? I still get paid to read but I'm loving reading more than ever! I have more than 20 books in my TBR pile and six on the way to me and I love it. I tell everyone I know about it, but I think they just think I'm weird because no one's signed up yet. Oh well. And I'm a Big Sister for Big Brothers Big Sisters and I was able to get my Little Sister a couple of books and she was so excited. Or she acted like it anyway. Who really knows with 13-year-olds? I commute to work and usually bring my dinner, so it was always a challenge for me to take a FULL HOUR for my break. I take a walk downtown, but that only takes, like, 20 minutes. Now I always have a book with me. If it's nice, I can sit outside and read. If it's not, I can go to one of the four coffee shops within a one-block radius of the newsroom and have a cup of coffee and just READ. OK, so I don't read the most intellectually stimulating books, but so what! I'm enjoying myself and I've found a way to relax.

So much to read ...

So I have this huge TBR pile that I'm trying to wade through. I've decided to read two books at once. Maybe not such a good idea. We'll see. So I'm reading "Under the Banner of Heaven" before I go to bed and "Something Blue" during my break at work and during snippets of time during the day. It's a very light read, so this type of reading is easy. Then it's onto the books on other people's wish lists: • Boy Meets Girl • The Husband • The Other Woman • Size 12 Is Not Fat • The Sun Farmer • The Year of Fog

Top 10 wish list books

OK, here is the REAL top 10 wish list books: 1. Baby Proof 2. Keeping Faith 3. Burning Down My Masters' House: A Personal Descent Into Madness That Shook The New York Times 4. Bind, Torture, Kill: The Inside Story of the Serial Killer Next Door 5. Dedication 6. Eat, Pray, Love 7. The Guy Not Taken 8. My Sister's Keeper 9. Nineteen Minutes 10. Shopaholic & Baby And, actually, these really shouldn't be numbered at all. They're just my top 10, in any order.