Tuesday 1 January 2013

52 books in 52 weeks - Want to join?

Happy New Year everyone!

I mentioned in my personal resolutions post that I wanted to read more in 2013.  Having thought about it more I've decided to set myself the challenge of reading 52 books in the year, an average of 1 per week.

I quite often have weeks where I don't get chance to read at all, but then on a good week I can fit in 2 or 3 books (I read 4 over Christmas week).  So I'm hoping I can manage 52 books by the end of the year.  I'm not counting sewing books for this, I tend to review 4 or 5 sewing books a month so that would already be my 52 books a year.

For the last 2-3 years whilst running The Sewing Directory I've been collecting up second hand books from the charity shops but haven't had time to read them so I have hundreds here in the house waiting to be read. 

I'm a big fan of historial fiction, I particularly like books by Jean Plaidy.  I've read all her Tudor series but have the Victorian series here ready to start.  Plus I was lucky enough to find about 30 of her original books from the 50s and 60s at the local market so have a whole shelf of them to read.  Some have been republished in the last 10 years or so but many haven't so it was a great find.

My first book of the year is Wolf Hall by Hilary Mantel, I love books about the Tudors and this one came recommended to me by a few people.  I started it earlier and I have to say although I'm enjoying the story I find the writing style pretty hard going, it seems to meander a lot and it's hard to keep up with what's what.  I'm determined to finish this one but may not read any more of hers, will see how I feel by the end.

Natalie at the Yarn Yard is also doing this resolution too.  Does anyone else want to join us?

You don't have to decide up front which books you are going to read, just make a list as you read them so at the end of the year you can look back on what you'd read throughout 2013.  I've got a rough idea of what I want to read but will see where to mood takes me and what interesting new books come out during the year.

I was thinking maybe we could do a blog post every quarter to say how we are getting on and share which books we've enjoyed, and which we haven't to help people decide what to add to their reading list.

If you fancy joining in blog about it on your blog and post a link below.  I'll update this post to include all the links so people can find them.

If you are on Twitter please let me know your Twitter name and I'll add you to the Twitter list I've made.  Then we can all keep up with what the others are reading.  You can find the list here and my Twitter name is @sewingdirectory.  The hashtag we are using is #52books

I've not added a tab to the top of my blog so you can see what books I've read so far. 

Happy reading everyone.

Edited to add - Following conversations on Twitter mid year we're going to share some book recommendations based on what we've read first half of the year.  If people are up for it we may try and arrange a book swap too, we can send a few of our favourites off to someone else who is taking party in the 52 book challenge.

6 comments:

Unknown said...

Great idea. I have read Wolf Hall, though I must admit it took more than one week to finish it.

Mareenchen said...

Stick with it! You get used to the style. I've read it three times in two years because I love it so much, have read the second, and can hardly wait for the third installment to arrive.

Love your plan of reading 52. I'm onto my first as well, Jane Eyre, after re-reading Wuthering Heights over Christmas. Been wanting to read it for years and am finally doing it.

char said...

Hi, I'm definitely planning to join in with this challenge - here's the link to the page I've set up to list the books I've read as I go, as my memory can be hopeless.
http://dinoprincesschar.blogspot.co.uk/p/52-in-52.html

Unknown said...

If you like historical novels I can highly recommend the Suffolk House trilogy by Norah Lofts. I enjoyed all 3 books.

Sewing Directory said...

Thank you Gill I haven't read those books yet so I've added them onto my list of books to try.

Good idea to add a separate page to your blog with your book list on Char, hope you don't mind but I did the same. Safer than writing them all in a notebook as I might lose it before the end of the year.

I gave up on Wolf Hall in the end, I got over 200 pages in and was still really struggling with the writing style. I decided life is too short to read books you have to battle through ;-)

Swirlyarts said...

Oooooh I'm joining in and have just written my first round up post :) http://swirlyarts.blogspot.co.uk/2013/02/52-books-in-52-weeks.html

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