Reading update

So I have officially passed the half-way point in my reading journey of 2012. Which is good because December 31st is fast approaching and I still have 35 books to finish!! I was doing the math and I was thinking I probably won't make my goal of 500 books, 335 of which are currently documented on Goodreads. When I started this goal 9 years ago I thought reaching 500 books would be easy!! I added 100 books to my Goodreads number because there are lots of books I've read that are not documented on there. Childhood books, school books, project books, things I've forgotten I read, etc. I thought if I could reach 400 documented books that would be the perfect compromise to reaching my goal, since I did an awful job of documenting my reading after I made that goal. I was clearly not that organised at 16 :P

So I have 35/65 books read for this year and about 2.5months left to reach it. If I wanted to complete my goal that would leave 35 more books I would need to read by February 18th which seems pretty unlikely. Somewhere along the way though I realized that reaching the goal wasn't so important anymore. In a small way this goal has pushed me outside my comfort zone and opened up opportunities and realizations about myself that I didn't know before. I've read books that under normal circumstances I would have never previously read, but I wanted to be open to reading new things. Even if I didn't like the book, I was able to learn something about myself. When I decided to start blogging the books I read, I in essence started writing again.

Writing has always been something I loved. I have always been good at writing and as I read my first book review to the most recent I notice that my writing has become better. I learned how to write a book review and I learned how to write about how a book made me feel. Some reviews were easier than others, and some reviews I haven't written yet. But I wanted to make sure I blogged about my experience. My friend made a good point the other day when I said that I didn't think I would reach my goal and it was "as long as you're having fun". All this reading has given me a great escape into new worlds I never would have experienced otherwise and its been an amazing journey so far. My vocabulary has improved and I feel smarter, my imagination is getting a workout and its given me time to myself. 

So here's to reading as many books as humanly possible by February 18th, 2013. The most important thing I learned from this is that even once my birthday passes I'm going to keep reading. There is always a new book out there waiting to be discovered, waiting to be read and waiting to take me on an unforgettable journey!! And I'm going to meet it head on.

A.