Reading: Slacker or Realist?

Last year I tried a less lofty list of books I wanted to read. And guess what, I ended up with less books read. Ridiculous, really. I set my bar very realistically I thought and I ended up reading exactly three off that list. Even more ridiculous.

The List of Books, 2013 edition

Sarah's  Key
Bossy Pants
Wolf:  The Lives of Jack London
The Perks of Being a Wallflower
Lolita
Let's Pretend This Never Happened
Team of Rivals
The Hitchhikers Guide to the Galaxy
The Pillars of the Earth
The Silver Linings Playbook
Unbroken
One Thousand Gifts 

For the record the past three years I have read 61, 43 and 38 books in that order.  What is going on? Part of it, I went back to work. I guess that is a factor. A bulk of my reading was done by a pool in the summer. Last year, I did not get in a pool, much less read by it. My kids were too busy and I running them everywhere.

The List of Books, 2012 edition

Unbroken
The Hours
All the Devils are Here
Boomerang
Sarah's Key
The Sound and the Fury
Ulysses
The Omnivore's Dilemma
Middlesex
Bossypants
The Grapes of Wrath
In Defense of Food
The Poisonwood Bible
The Paris Wife
The Pillars of the Earth
Kisses From Katie
What the Dog Saw
Wuthering Heights
Steve Jobs
Atlas Shrugged
True Prep
A Simple Path
In the Garden Of Beasts
The Complete Idiots Guide to Understanding Islam
Jane Eyre
Stern Men
Van Gogh: The Life
Wolf: The Lives of Jack London
Salvage the Bones
Delta Wedding

How I am going to remedy this? I am not 100% sure, but a start is less computer/blog/iPhone/Facebook. My job requires me to be on social media. I use it all the time for that specific reason, or so I tell myself. But my addiction is a little to easy to explain away. Breaking the itch to check will be hard, but I have to do it.  I have noticed my attention span has gotten increasingly shorter thanks to my iPhone. Church, movies, television shows, dinner parties...all are too "long" for my short wired brain. Time for an intervention. And some balance.


This year, my goal is still 100 books. I  am two down thanks to a virus and the winter chill that kept me in pajamas all weekend. I am scouring the internet for what I should read in 2014. Starting HERE.