Tuesday, March 8, 2011

The 150 Book Challenge [Updates]

So far the challenge is going pretty well. I finished book 29 yesterday, and I'm midway through book 30:


I've been able to cycle books pretty quickly, partially because I've mastered keeping a flow of books coming. Without new books to read, the whole process would stop.

[Amazingly, the last ten books I have read have all been by women. That happen all the time.]

One thing that has been holding me back, though, has been how cold its been here in DC. I spend 15 to 30 minutes every day waiting for the bus (I have to transfer buses, which accounts for some of that time). Its been too cold to get my hands out of my coat to hold the book, so I've been waiting until I actually get in the bus to begin reading.

I've got to read 12 to 13 books a month, which so far I've been right on: I hit 25 books the last day of February. With the last few books added into the mix, I've been finishing a book every 2.3 days on average. In order to stay on pace, I have to finish nine more books this month.

In the wings, I have one of George R. R. Martin's books in my To Be Read pile. Those have been challenging this year, because they are 800-1000 pages long, and have taken 6-7 days to complete. So far to combat that I've been trying to get through at least 100 pages of it a day, no matter what.

Right now I'm 22 days ahead of where I was last year, or 7 books ahead. So its going pretty well. Just for a comparison, here's 2010:


And here's the same time period again, this year:
 

Pretty awesome. More books read in the same time period.