2011 - to set or not to set reading goals?

In thinking about reading (and blogging) for 2011, I wasn't sure I wanted to do any challenges this year.

I've come to realize they distract me.  I think and worry and fret far more about what I need to read for a challenge than what I actually read.  This gets worse when I have greater than one challenge going on at the same time.  I finished one challenge (Women Unbound) but had trouble finishing the other (The Complete Booker) and I only made minimal progress on my projects.

So I think I'll just do one challenge (kind of one and a half).  I'd like to work on The Complete Booker Challenge 2011 - it would help make a decent amount of headway on my Booker Project.  I'll probably start with the "Pix-a-Mix of Six" (read six Booker winners) and it might upgrade to the "A Booker's Dozen" (read twelve winners or nominees from the short- or long-lists).  I'll need to get a challenge post up for that one.  I've also signed up for the Goodreads Challenge - which is simply a goal to read a certain number of books.  Goodreads makes it really easy to track that with the stats page so I signed up with the goal of reading 100 books this year.  I've not made a great start what with the mess of moving and all.  One hundred books in a year is like my personal glass ceiling, somehow.

I slowly started accepting review copies from publishers this last year (well, just HarperPerennial/Harper Paperbacks, really).  I didn't go overboard (thank goodness) but I haven't been very good at getting things read when I need to for publication dates.  So I need to work on that.  I also have to pay attention to what I ask for because sometimes you get what you ask for; I requested a review copy of the new Christopher Isherwood diaries never realizing for one minute that it was going to be quite thick (and, in the manner of diaries, not terribly "readable").  So I must keep a better head on my shoulders (I apologize to Harper for that one, it's going to take me a bit to get that one read).

I also need to work on a few more of my projects - especially the Nobel and Best American ones - because the projects are really my pets.  They cover a nice cross-section of literature without a great deal of cross-over (there really isn't much, from what I've found).

So, in summary, my Reading Goals for 2011:
1) Only sign-up for "real" challenge: The Complete Booker 2011
2) Write a sign-up post for The Complete Booker 2011
3) Be smarter about review copies
4) Work on my projects

Bring it, 2011!

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