Day one

Well, creating a blog was not something I ever thought I would do, however when I went to create this one, I discovered that back in 2004 I had started a blog on this same website apparently. This blog consisted of one entry which commented about how crappy a year 2004 had been and that I was going to journal the next year or something. Well perhaps there was nothing to write about in 2005 because here I am almost five years later discovering that not only did I not finish what I had set out to do back on New Years Eve 2004, that no one of any importance read that one and only post! I am hoping this is not the case with my new blog, 50 books.

The idea for 50 books came about yesterday on the way home from Thanksgiving Dinner (Canadian) yesterday. During that 4 hour drive home I had time to reflect upon the ridiculous amount of books I own and have not read. In fact, during our little road trip this past weekend, my family and I hit two bookstores in Saskatoon, the wonderful McNally Robinson with the tree in the middle of it, as well as a used book store called Tramps. In total our family spent about $200 on books between the two stores and I would say 75% of the books purchased were for me! Now all of us love to read, my husband and two sons, however I am what I would call a book hoarder. Books are becoming an issue in our home, the room we have devoted to our books (our kids call it our library) is not a large room by any stretch, it is a small bedroom on the main level of our home which I normally would like to be able to use as a guest room, but there really is no room for much more than a playpen in this room due to all the books on shelves, falling off the shelves, in boxes on the floor, in the closet, everywhere!

So enough is enough. I told my husband after the novelty of purchasing new crisp books at McNally Robinson and some very gently used copies at Tramps had worn off, (kind of like coming off a high) how silly I had been to buy every single one of those books! And of course this is not the first time we have had this kind of conversation because I am a compulsive shopper in addition to book hoarder. So I told my husband halfway to Regina from Saskatoon that I am NOT going to purchase a single book until March of 2010, this being of course when a new book from one of my favorite authors comes out. So here we are, mid October I challenge myself with the help from my husband, to sit down between now and then and read at least 50 of my books that have been patiently waiting in my library.

So to prepare myself for this challenge, I grabbed the only paper I could find in the truck (other than the books themselves sitting at my feet recently purchased, and I began to write down the titles and authors of 50 books that I knew for a fact were sitting at home in my cluttered reading room. It did not take as long as my husband thought it would. Well knowing how many books I have purchased recently at used book sales, book stores, and online it really was not that hard to remember the titles of fifty of them.

When we arrived home, I filled in the blanks on my list, names of authors I had forgotten and titles that had slipped my mind but my list is complete, there are fifty books on my list waiting for me to read them. I am not planning on reading them in the order in which I wrote the list, I just plan to plug away at fifty book in hopes that I have them read by March of 2010 when Rachel Vincents next book in her werecat series is on bookstore shelves! Do you think I can actually do this.....I write without using a question mark since at this moment I can not figure out how to change my laptops settings to get rid of the french è when I want to use a question mark!! At least I can still use my exclamation point!!!!!

So tomorrow, I will offer any readers of this blog my list of fifty books. I feel overwhelmed at the idea of having to read fifty of them in less than six months. I am an avid reader, but life happens, I have two busy boys and a busy house at the best of times, some weeks I go without picking up a book, others I can read two or three in the same amount of time. For now, I am going to relax in a nice hot bubble bath, anticipating many winter nights ahead of me, reading the collection of books that is only the tip of the iceberg in my library of unread books. I just can not help myself, if i see a title that looks good sitting on the used book table at the library I will pick it up for 50 cents. I want you all to know I also judge books a lot by their cover and rarely am disappointed by my choosings, of course this includes reading the back cover as well :) But over the years, books have taken over my house and although I love them dearly, I must learn ways to overcome my compulsion to buy them and leave them sitting on a shelf in hopes that one day I really will read them.

I am also a library user, dont get me wrong, I am at my library picking up books I have special ordered in at least once per week. The librarians all know me by name and I am probably one of their most frequent users. I have often thought of asking one of the ladies at the libary just how many books I have taken out in a year, perhaps I will do this at the end of December.

For now, I welcome any questions my readers may have and I would also love suggestions for future books for me to eventually read once I wade through my fifty books!