Family tradition: one of the children gets a violent stomach bug between Christmas and New Year’s Eve. CHECK. It looked like a bad horror movie, except Joe and I had to clean up afterward. Maybe we need a new tradition for next year.
Some years I skip the resolution thing altogether. After all, I’m always trying to eat better, exercise more, live in the moment, yadda yadda yadda. Depending on the week (or sometimes the day), I’m also trying to drink less. Or more. Again, it depends on the moment.
But I saw a neat blog by my friend DeAnna with a great idea. It’s called the 2012 TBR Pile Challenge! In essence, you go to your To Be Read pile of books, select 12 that have been lingering there for at least a year, and commit to reading at least one per month in 2012. If you sign up on the site and follow all their rules, you could possibly win a $50 Amazon gift certificate to buy–you got it–more books!
My TBR pile, sadly, has gone beyond a mere pile. It’s at least half of a floor-to-ceiling bookshelf in the living room, plus an additional pile next to my bedside table. We won’t speak of the digital pile on my Nook–none of those have been there longer than a year, since I haven’t owned it for a full year yet.
For the record, my list for the 2012 TBR Challenge (in no particular order):
Love in the Time of Cholera by Garbriel Garcia Marquez
Olive Kitteridge by Elizabeth Strout
The Road by Cormac McCarthy
The Master Butchers Singing Club by Louise Erdrich
Sex With Kings by Eleanor Herman
Captain Corelli’s Mandolin by Louis de Bernieres
Super Sad True Love Story by Gary Shteyngart
Jayber Crow by Wendell Berry
The Wordy Shipmates by Sarah Vowell
The Yiddish Policemen’s Union by Michael Chabon
Middlesex by Jeffrey Eugenides
Sideways by Rex Pickett
Two of these are nonfiction. Some were gifts. Others were borrowed. I confess, Jayber Crow was a book group book that I wasn’t able to read the month the group read it, and I’ve always meant to get back to.
As I read through these, I’ll post my reviews/comments on the TBR Challenge site and also to Goodreads.
I think that’s enough on resolutions for one day. I’ll be back to post more before the clock strikes midnight on the 31st!
Until then, what’s on YOUR To Be Read pile for the coming year?
Partlow's Pool 
Go MB! My goal for this year is to have enough money so I can amass a TBR pile. In the meantime, I’m borrowing from friends and family. Reading=bliss.
Glad you’re joining us!!
The Road and Middlesex are two of my favorites! I hope you manage to get to both of those.
I haven’t read any of the others, so I’m looking forward to your reviews. I enjoyed Garciz-Marquez’s Memories of My Melancholy Whores, and I hear good things about Love in the Time of Cholera as well… I might have to get a copy (although, my copy of 100 Years of Solitude has been sitting here for years, maybe I should read that one first).
Good Luck!
That is such a great idea. I’m in. I’ll be interested to hear what you thought about alot of those books. Happy new year and I’m glad you kid is on the mend. BTW, forget about drinking less. Not only can alcohol be healthy, it helps with writers block. It’s a fact. I swear. 🙂
I’ve started Love in the Time of Cholera like four times now, Ugh. I can’t do it.
Middlesex was good but went on too damned long.
Booze: drink the good stuff. Kids: Make ’em sleep outside, so you can just hose down the puke next time.
Oh MB, this blog makes me want to attempt for a fourth time to read The House of the Seven Gables! I can conquer the novel that as alluded me for a decade…LOL.