UPDATE #7 (and final): Summer Reading Challenge

Happy fall, followers and readers! My Summer Reading Challenge timeline has met its end, much more quickly than I expected and hoped. Here is a summary of my progress with the Penguin 80 and Challenge Your Shelf book lists:

Total Number of Titles: 110
Number of Days: 89 (oh God why didn’t I make this 90?! Cue OCD freakout)
Titles Read Before Challenge: 9
Titles Read During Challenge: 3
Titles in Limbo: 1 (I haven’t forgotten about you, Anna Karenina)

Even I understand the math between the total number of titles and the number of days; I knew this from the beginning. Did I purposely set myself up for failure, you ask? No, I just gave myself many options for success, an indefinable form of success. I read about one book a month, and this was among reading stories from The New Yorker, Glimmer Train and bloggers I follow (not on these lists). I feel okay with the results, although I owe much of this to the fact that I read almost ten of the titles previous to the start of the challenge.

What I am taking away from this is that it’s extremely beneficial to have lists like these. Especially since their content is varied and allows me to act upon whatever reading mood I may be in. Although the summer is over, I will continue with the Reading Challenge, although I will be setting more manageable and realistic goals. Or a goal. Starting now, on this second day of fall (yes, I’m giving myself an optimistic head start), I will be reading at least one book a month in order to get back into the reading rhythm I seem to have lost. By October 31st I will give an update and a look into what I will read next. I will be cycling through my already backed up personal library, the two lists I used over the summer, and my Goodreads account for titles, and I hope you’ll join me in this literary quest.

So, I am officially saying Au Revoir to summer, and hello to my favorite time of year – I really consider this to be my fresh beginning, as opposed to the technical start of the calendar.
The first book of my Reading Challenge: Yes Please by Amy Poehler.

Comment and let me know if you’ll be joining me, or what you’re reading this month!