My holiday #bookaday pile + today's read.
In the past, I have made fairly simple new year's resolutions: Use fewer plastic bags from the grocery store. Get more sleep by going to bed earlier. Last year, I resolved to turn this page into a book blog to keep track of my reading, and to read at least one book each week. (I also vowed to get new glasses, which I still have not done. Sigh.) Results have been mixed, as they always are. I almost never use plastic bags anymore, and the fact that I wake up by five each morning has certainly forced me to go to bed earlier, although that has more to do with an early-rising upstairs neighbor than with any decision on my part.
I also read over 200 books last year, far more than the 52 that I would have read at the once a week pace, and I diligently kept track of them both here and on Goodreads, so I know how many pages I read and at what pace and in what genres. I don't have anything to compare this year's numbers to, but I am pretty sure I read more non-trashy* novels this year than I ever have, and that is a good thing. (*trashy novel is a completely non-pejorative term that my friend Dana and I started using in high school to refer to romance novels of all types.) I have discovered books that I would have otherwise missed, and my students have benefited from all of the reading that I did this year.
And yet, as always, it is time to change, time for new goals, and new resolutions.
My goal this year is to read 365 books, or a book a day. This is partly inspired by the excellent #bookaday community on Twitter, and partly to push my own reading further. I will not, of course, read a book every single day, but I will read every day as I always have, and I will certainly expand my reading into the picture books and middle grade novels that are important for my students but not typically as interesting for me.
This blog, naturally, will change as a result. I could never review 365 books in a year and teach full time, so I am going to focus my reviews on the books that I love and want to share with others, and do very quick reports on other titles. My complete list of books will still be available on Goodreads, and somewhere here, but I won't review every book that I read.
I am also going to write more about teaching, so this space will become less of a book blog and more of a teacher/reader blog. My goal is to try to write weekly on that topic. We'll see how it goes. I am not alone in feeling like teaching has been under attack during the past several months, so instead of endlessly yelling at Oprah and Bill Gates in my head (please tell me I'm not that only person that does this), I'm going to replace their noise with things that I know to be true about teaching and learning.
My other goals are simple. I'm flirting with the idea of doing a photo 365 project, though I'm not quite committed enough to join a group yet. I bought a cute daily planner notebook from Moleskine, and I want to write something in it each day, even if it only says "Finally blogged again!" I want to read more of the awesome books that are already on my shelves.
And yes, I really want to get new glasses.
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