366 Books January Update

It’s a new month, which means one month of my National Year of Reading challenge has passed. If you haven’t been reading my posts, or following my updates on Twitter or Facebook, I’ll explain.

This year is the National year of Reading here in Australia. Hooray! A whole year of focus on one of life’s great treasures. All around the country there are events,promotions and challenges designed to get people of all ages, from all walks of life reading more – and loving it! You can see details of the goings on at the official website.

So, I woke up on the first of January and thought to myself – wow, it’s the Year of Reading. I wonder if I can really make it a year of reading, and read a book for every day of the year. And before I could stop and think about it, I’d told the world that that was what I was trying to do. And people have encouraged me,  so I’ve run with it.  You can see my original post which explains the parameters I’ve set for myself, here.

Anyway, it’s been a month, so I thought the end of the month (or, in fact, the first day of the new one) was a good time to check in and see how I’m doing – and, so far, I;m doing fine. 31 days of the year down, and I;ve read 33 books. Here’s the list so far, with links to the ones I’ve reviewed on Aussiereviews.

1	Straight Line to My Heart	Bill Condon	Allen & Unwin	Young Adult
2	Only Ever Always	Penni Russon	Allen & Unwin	Young Adult
3	Harry’s War	John Heffernan	Omnibus	Children’s
4	Just Like That	Janet Poole	Mountain View	Self Help
5	Shadrach	Meindert Dejong	Harper Trophy	Chidlren’s
6	Nanberry	Jackie French	Angus&RObertson	Young Adult
7	Extinction 2	Lizzie Wilcock	Scholastic	Young Adult
8	The Filth Licker	Cristy Burne	Frances Lincoln	Children’s
9	Crow Country	Kate Constable	Allen & Unwin	Young Adult
10	Note on the Door	Lorraine Marwood	Walker	Children’s/Poetry
11	The Golden Door	Emily Rodda	Scholastic	Children’s
12	Lily Gets Her Wings	Elizabeth Pulford	Scholastic	Children’s
13	Animal People	Charlotte Wood	Allen & Unwin	Contemporary Adult
14	Lily Has a Secret	Elizabeth Pulford	Scholastic	Children’s
15	Button Boy	Rebecca Young & Sue deGennaro	Scholastic	Picture Book
16	I Heart You, You Haunt Me	Lisa Schroeder	Simon Pulse	YA Verse Novel
17	Froi of the Exiles	Melina Marchetta	Penguin	Young Adult
18	The Red Bridge	Kylie Dunstan	Windy Hollow	Picture Book
19	Nog and the Land of Noses	Bruce Whatley	Scholastic	Picture Book
20	How Now Brown Frau	Merridy Eastman	Allen & Unwin	NonFiction – Memoir
21	Revenge	Gabrielle Lord	Scholastic	Children’s
22	Selected Poems	TS Eliot	Faber and Faber	Poetry
23	Lola’s Secret	Monica McInerney	Penguin	Contemporary Adult
24	The Little Refugee	Ahn Do	Allen & Unwin	Picture Book
25	Cooking the Books	Kerry  Greenwood	Allen & Unwin	Adult
26	Flood	Jackie French	Scholastic	Picture Book
27	City of Lies	Lian Tanner	Allen & Unwin	Children’s
28	Bilby Secrets	Edel Wignell	Walker	Picture Book
29	The Biggest Estate on Earth	Bill Gammage	Allen & Unwin	NonFiction – Memoir
30	Selby Sprung	Duncan Ball	Angus&Robertson	Children’s
31	For All Creatures	Glenda Millard	Walker	Picture Book
32	Autumn Laing	Alex Miller	Allen & Unwin	Adult – Literary Fiction
33	The Attractor Factor	Joe Vitale	Wiley	Self Help

You can see I’ve read a real range of books – across age groups, formats and subject matter. So far 7 picture books (yes, I know these are short and help my total, which is why I’m only counting them if it’s the first time I;ve read them AND I review them), 10 children’s books, 7 young adult, 4 adult fiction, 4 adult nonfiction.  Lengthwise they’ve ranged from the picture books to  one of over 600 pages. Some have taken more than one day to read, and one of the challenges I’ve had is to not worry about the tally so much but to really enjoy each book. It’s not a race – it’s an adventure.

I must say that the big revelation for me has been that setting myself this challenge has helped me rediscover some of the fun of reading. Yes, I;ve always loved reading, but as a reviewer with an always-large review pile, sometimes it feels like a chore – especially when I feel guilt about the size of that pile. Suddenly, in January, my pile is going down and I’ve also allowed myself time to read things not in that pile.

Onto February. I’m halfway through two different books at the moment – because I’ve decided to read a chapter of a writing book every day. And, looking at my pile, I have some great reads ahead of me in the next 29 days. I’ll update you again soon.

In the meantime, I would love to hear about any challenges you are participating in this year.

Sally