52 Books in 52 Weeks: A recap

A lot of people have asked me how my 52 books project went, so here goes. In a nutshell, it was most definitely a rewarding and satisfying endeavour that I hope to continue into 2011, for the following reasons:

• It was a good lesson in the power of goal setting and gave a rewarding sense of accomplishment. To tackle a goal that seemed so difficult yet at the same time realistic and doable on the day-to-day scale was pretty eye-opening, and to see myself accomplish that goal over the year was pretty empowering. In fact it's motivated me to do some goal-setting in other areas of my life for the upcoming year.
• Tracking my reading and seeing that list grow was also rewarding- who knows how many books we read over the years but to see it on a list was awesome to see just how those numbers add up! Again, I'm going to continue with the numbers thing, because it's so satisfying to quantify accomplishments, so a lot of my personal goals are going to be similar- 30 hikes, 10 snowshoes hikes, stuff like that.
• I finally got around to reading some of those books that I've always wanted to or felt I should read but never made the time for.
• It gave me the chance to really work through my never-ending reading list. It's nice to be crossing books off that list, not just adding new books to it.
  
• A book a week was a comfortable pace and worked out well- some books were short and took less than a week, others were bigger and took a couple of weeks. I briefly considered upping the ante after reading about the 10-10-10 challenge (10 books x 10 genres by Oct 2010) but then I realized that if I read that fast I wouldn't remember any of the reads by the end of the year. As it stands, I did start to lose track a bit after hitting the two-thirds mark but I still have a basic idea of the plots of all the books I read this year. It was a calm enough pace to still enjoy all of the books I read.
  
• I talked to a lot of people about my 52 books project, and inspired a few to try something like it. I think it will be a lot more fun to be reading alongside other people this year!
  
• Lastly, I read a few articles about how the world needs more readers- people are reading less although plenty of books are getting written and published every year. For that reason I think I'm going to continue at the pace of a book a week for 2011.

So yes, I will be continuing. For anyone interested, a couple of variations could be reading a designated number of books in a particular genre (classics, poetry, mystery, graphic novel, etc) or following certain book clubs or reading lists. My own list was strictly fiction (yup, pleasure only) and included reading the short list nominees for the Giller Prize and the Governor Generals awards (back to 2007) and the BBC '100 Books everyone should read list' (working my way through it). I've thought of adding the Canada Reads short list, the Man Booker Prize short list or the Commonwealth Writers' Prize (I read a lot of Canadian fiction!), and possibly the winners only of the Giller or GG Awards prior to 2007. But heck. That's a lot of books! Happy 2011 and happy reading!