The Reading Challenge of 2012

Here is the previously mentioned reading challenge that I came up with and will try to complete in 2012.

Over the past few years my love for reading has not only manifested in reading the printed word (and sniffing the pages and sleeping with them) but in a book-purchasing addiction too. Whenever I am happy, gloomy, bored, or busy with one too many tasks to do but I feel like procastinating, and I have a little money that is burning a hole in pocket, I can't resist buying books, books, more and more books. Even if I can't really afford them nor money- neither timewise, even if I already have a dozen books waiting to be read. I need them, I must have them, I cannot live without them surrounding me. I never have the heart to leave them on the shelf in the store, even if I know that I'll get to them only in a year or three. Hence, my once tiny "to be read" pile has kept growing and my addiction has gotten quite out of hand.

Then a few months ago I ran out of shelf-space and I received a new bookcase. When I started to divide my books into an "already read" and a "to be read" pile, I quickly realized that I had only read about one third of my books, while the "to be read" pile took up an entire bookcase and contained over a hundred volumes. That was the moment when it occurred to me to quit this crazy addiction of mine, and start actually reading my books, instead of only purchasing and abandoning them to the shelves.

So in 2012 I will try not to purchase any more books (or as few as I possibly can), and read as many volumes from my "to be read" pile as I can. Hopefully I will conquer at least 50 books by the end of the year.

Here is the previously mentioned pile:

• My Hollywood by Hugh Loudon
• Savage Beautfy by Nancy Millford
• White Oleander by Janet Fitch
• What a Woman Must Do by Faith Sullivan
• Johnny Panic and the Bible of Dreams by Sylvia Plath
• Wintering by Kate Moses
• Adrian Mole and the Weapons of Mass Distruction by Sue Townsend
• A Year in Provance by Peter Mayle
• Empire Falls by Richard Russo
• The Collected Dorothy Parker by Dorothy Parker
• In Cold Blood by Truman Capote
• The Emperor's Children by Claire Messud
• Holy Fools by Joanne Harris
• Blue Eyed Boy by Joanne Harris
• My Lates Grievance by Elinor Lipman
• Ecstasy by Irvine Welsh
• A Million Little Pieces by James Frey
• Little Men and Jo's Boys by Louisa May Alcott
• Anna Wintour: Front Row by Jerry Oppenheimer
• Long Way Round by Ewan McGregor and Charley Boorman
• Long Way Down by Ewan McGregor and Charley Boorman
• A Life in Letters by F. Scott Fitzgerald
• Starter for Ten by David Nicholls
• The Gilmore Girls Companion by A.S. Berman
• Hester Among the Ruins by Binnie Kirshenbaum
• The Shipping News by Annie Proulx
• My Talk Pretty One Day by David Sedaris
• The Sweetest Thing by Fiona Shaw
• Cuba by Emily Barr
• The Geography of Bliss by Eric Weiner
• Northanger Abbey by Jane Austen
• A Room of One's Own by Virginia Woolf
• The Time Traveler's Wife by Audrey Niffenegger
• The Book Thief by Markus Zusak
• The Dutchess by Amanda Foreman
• My Name is Memory by Ann Brashares
• Down Under by Bill Bryson
• Save Me the Waltz by Zelda Fitzgerald
• Coco Chanel by Axel Madsen
• The Stone Diaries by Carol Shields
• 127 Hours by Aron Ralston
• The Hours by Michael Cunningham
• The Good Life by Jay McInerney
• The Secret Life of Bees by Sue Monk Kidd
• The Boys Are Back in Town by Simon Carr
• One Flew Over the Cuckoo's Nest by Ken Kesey
• One Fifth Avenue by Candace Bushnell
• The Constant Gardener by John le Carré
• Hunger by Knut Hamsun
• Haven't Stopped Dancing Yet by Shyama Perera
• Cash: The Autobiography of Johnny Cash by J. Cash and Patrick Carr
• Nanny Returns by Nicola Kraus and Emma Mclaughlin
• Jigs and Reels by Joanne Harris
• While Mortals Sleep by Kurt Vonnegut
• The Tale of Two Cities by Charles Dickens
• Oliver Twist by Charles Dickens
• Tender is the Night by F. Scott Fitzgerald
• The Hunchback of Notre-Dame by Victor Hugo
• The Jane Austen Book Club by Karen Joy Fowler
• A Long Fatal Love Chase by Louisa May Alcott
• The Picture of Dorian Gray and Other Writings by Oscar Wilde
• Forrest Gump by Winston Groom
• Sister Carrie by Theodore Dreiser
• To Kill a Mockingbird by Harper Lee
• Good Wives by Louisa May Alcott
• The Right Stuff by Tom Wolfe
• Anne of Avonlea by L. M. Montgomery
• The Puffin Sherlock Holmes by Sir Arthur Conan Doyle
• Madame Bovary by Flaubert
• Chasing Harry Winston by Lauren Weisberger
• In Her Shoes by Jennifer Weiner 
• Notes on a Scandal by Zoe Heller
• The Grapes of Wrath by John Steinbeck
• Jane Eyre by Charlotte Bronte
• The Evil Seed by Joanne Harris
• Dorothy Parker: What Fresh Hell is This? by Marion Meade
• The Help by Kathryn Stockett (borrowed)
• Peter Pan by Barrie (borrowed)

Hungarian Books:

• A nap szerelmese by Dallos Sándor
• Aranyecset by Dallos Sándor
• Régimódi történet by Szabó Magda
• Mondjátok meg Zsófikának by Szabó Magda
• Álarcosbál by Szabó Magda
• Blaha Lujza naplója
• Színek és évek by Kaffka Margit
• Halálos tavasz by Zilahy Lajos
• A férfi mind őrült byy Török Rezső
• Pixel by Tóth Krisztina
• Úri Muri by Móricz Zsigmond
• Körhinta by Sarkadi Imre
• Jöttem, láttam... Vesztettem? by Székely Éva
• Franciadrazsé by Vass Virág
• Lolával az élet by D. Tóth Kriszta
• A szerelem könyvei by Salinger Richárd
• Dafke by Lugosi Viktória

(This is not the complete list yet. I will update it with my Hungarian books, plus the volumes I have in my dorm room.)

As you can see, there are buttons for different pages under the blog title. If you click on "The 'To Be Read'" button, you will find this very post there, and as I proceed with my readings over the year, I will cross out the volumes that has shifted from the 'To Be Read" pile into the "Already Read" pile. Next to the "The To Be Read" button there is the "Reading List 2012" button, under which you will find the  - hopefully - ever so growing list of books I manage to read in 2012. Fingers crossed I will be able to keep it updated.