Goal of the month: read 40 pages a day.

A few days ago, hubby and I finally went to Ikea and bought two more shelves for our many books. We built them up on Saturday morning and I spent the following Monday diligently re-organizing each one of them shelves.

I decided to put our books up on a descending order, starting from the tallest and thickest and descending to the shorter and thinner volumes. If you now take a look at our shelves you will see a feast of colours and I can't but feeling joy when staring at our small treasure neatly sitting on our black and white bookshelves.

On Monday I also took my time (I am waiting for a call from a new job and I am currently unemployed, so I've plenty of time on my hands) to check my books and to update my (too long) to be read list.
I found out I am with a list of 51 books to be read (two of them books are library books I need to hand back at the end of the month)! How comes I collected so many books and haven't read them yet?! This means I can't possibly buy new books for a while, not untill I've read at least a good half off that long list... And for me who's a compulsive book buyer it's a saddening thought indeed!

I need a plan, I must speed my reading pace. And I recently found out an interesting piece of writing by Julien Smith who gives his advices on how to read a book a week. Now, that was interesting indeed. Allegedly Julien says that if you bring yourself to read 40 pages a day you'll soon be reading a number of books as big as one book a week! Finally someone who gives me an advice to thin out my long list and that will allow me to soon (let's say in a couple months, day more day less) buy new books! Go Julien!

My plan is now to set a goal of 40 pages a day, as Julien teaches, to be read early in the morning or anyway during the day as soon as I've got a spare moment to fit a couple more pages in. That should work for me as well. Smith says that he never fell behind or stopped and that gives me hope. I agree with the article, reading 40 pages a day has to become a routine, and to make it become a routine it mustn't be left for the end of the day, when a person is too tired after a long day of work and other tasks. I will do my best to wake up a little earlier and read while I am having breakfast (that's anyway my idea of a perfect start to the day), then will read the rest of my 40 pages a day (and possibly some more on good days) at lunch time, when I sit down and try to relax before going back to running this or that errand. That should work. That must work. I want it to work, and I will do my best to succeed in the reading a book a week challenge.
What I loved of Julien Smith's article is that he allows people to put aside the odd book that doesn't manage to hook its readers to the plot. If something sucks (or feels tough), it's ok give up on it - for now. Thank you Julien, I now feel less guilty for having put away "Forever" by Hamill after struggling on it for what was like a fortnight. I will take it back eventually, when I feel I am stronger and when my reading pace has improved so much to be ahead of schedule.

I start from today. I am now sitting down, with my "Earthly Joys" book and will read my 40 pages of today. I am optimistic it will work with me allright. I will soon be back to my bookworm days. When I was a school girl I would read that much and maybe even more than that. But now that I've grown up I sort of lost my good old habit and miss it. I will focus on my goal. First read that 40 pages a day, then I can dedicate myself to other hobbies as well. I will make it! Oh, I will! And be sure I will keep an update of my results.

So here I start: my to-be-read list of books (some of them are in italian and some are in english)

• The Mill on the Floss- Elliot
• Fried Green Tomatoes at the Whistle Stop Cafe - Flagg
• The Kite Runner - Hosseini
• Crime and Punishment - Dostoevskij
• Narnia Chronicles - Lewis
• The Twins - De Loo
• ShakespeareWrote for Money - Hornby
• Forever - Hamill
• Be Faithful Unto Death - Moricz
• Charity Girl - Lowenthal
• The Swiss Family Robinson - Wyss
• Baking Cakes in Kingali - Parkin
• Wives and Daighters - Gaskell
• Daniel Deronda - Eliot
• The Confessions of Catherine Howard - Dunn
• Shadows of the workhouse - Worth
• Pearl of China - Min
• The Silver Lining Play Book - Quick
• The Fault in Our Stars - Green
• Dombey and Sons - Dickens
• Martin Chuzzlewith - Dickens
• Villette - Bronte
• The Tenant of Wildfell Hall - Bronte
• The Lake Glass - Binchy
• Wicked - Maguire
• Forget Me Not - Wolff
• Falling Angels - Chevalier
• A cuppa tea and an aspirin - Forrester
• Miss Purdy's Class - Murray
• Tess of D'Uberville - Hardy
• All that I am - Funder
• Mary Barton - Gaskell
• Ireland a novel - Delaney
• Thanksgiving Nights - Bausch
• The Emperor's Children -
• The House in Clewe Street - Lavin
• The Historian - Kostova
• The Last Runaway - Chevalier
• Les Veus del Pamano - Carrè
• Shirley - Bronte
• Middlemarch - Elliot
• Winter's Tale - Helprin
• The Pickwick Papers - Dickens
• War and peace - Tolstoj
• Vanity Fair- Tackerary
• Earthly Joys - Gregory
• Howards End  - Forster
• The Wise Woman - Gregory
• Meridon - Gregory
• The Favoured Child - Gregory
• Anna Karenina - Tolstoj

Great! I am off reading: happy weekend folks!

What's your reading pace? How many books do you read in one year? Have you got any reading advice you want to share?