2010 Wrap-up - or not!

I currently have forty-two blogs listed in my Google Reader, and every one of them is wrapping up the year and making plans for their 2011 reading.   Planning my reading is a new concept for me.  I have always been the proverbial "voracious reader", but I just ... read... whatever was handy.  When we lived in library-challenged areas, "handy" included re-reading from my own bookshelf, trading with friends, frequenting used-book shops and the rare trip to a mall and Walden Books (If I had the proper font - that would be glittery, or perhaps neon.  We have lived in some desolate places where it was 90 miles or more to a chain book store.)

In our more library-blessed years, I frequented the mystery shelves and new release sections looking for familiar names, but rarely branched out.  Then came May 2005 **insert fireworks, angels singing and other displays of awe!**  I went to work at the library and everything changed.  I discovered genres and authors I knew nothing about.  I became a whatever-word-means-more-than-voracious reader!

But then I became a blogger and discovered that people PLAN their reading.  They make lists - lists of what they have read, want to read, hope to read, books they are waiting for, books they no longer want, books they thought about reading, but didn't -  they categrogize, they rank, they enter challenges and contests, they participate in reading marathons. That they ever find time to actually open a book amazed me.  I was in awe!  I wanted to be like them.  I wanted to be organized and outlined and scheduled!  So I joined some challenges for 2010,  I bought a special organizer to keep track of my lists and I was set.  I was going to be an Intentional Reader.  Until one morning I looked at the reader in the mirror and realized "Oh yeah!  That's me.  i've never been organized in my life."  My planner contains two entries and I didn't complete a single challenge except the one Dave and I created.  I slunk back to reality and resigned myself to just being the scatter-brained me that loves books. 

My plan for 2011 is to not have a plan.  I'm not joining challenges or making lists or restricting myself to a certain type of book - although I'm still a tad envious of those of you who do.  The one concession I have made to list-making is reviewing what I've read in 2010 and selecting what I liked best.  In so doing, I discovered I read a lot of "fluff" this year, but I'm excusing myself because it's been a stressful year and my brain needed alot of comfort reading.  I was able to glean ten books that had some substance - at least to me - and I'll be sharing those tomorrow because this post is already a Tolstoy novel.  So pencil me in to your schedule tomorrow and come back for the final Just One More Thing... of 2010 and have a Happy New Year!