Summer Reading Plans Revisited.

Way back in June, I wrote a post about my summer reading plans, as well as some bookish goals I had. I gave myself the deadline of the end of August, and with the events of last week, I just haven't had the time to get around to looking at whether I accomplished my goals or not.

Hehe.

That would be a no.

Here were my original reading goals:

"At the moment of writing this, I am currently in the middle of books 93 and 94 off my list. I would love to hit book 120 by the end of the summer. Considering that would mean reading 25ish books in two month where I have only read 40 in six months seems like a tall order, but it is a perfectly doable goal if I stop slacking. :) I have plenty of free time now and I should be taking advantage of it! So, in more detail...

• Read 25 books from the Book list by August 31.
  
• 5 books must be from Adam's TBR Challenge (since I have only read ONE title. I STINK at challenges btw).
• 1 or 2 titles must be a Shakespeare play. I have neglected the bard.
• Make further progress in my Bible Reading Project (this has also been neglected recently due to my busy schedule)"

Right now I am reading book 113 (Moby-Dick), so I fell a little short of that goal. I am not at all disappointed though. I really enjoyed my reading this summer and while I stuck to many shorter titles, I felt like I read a lot of heavy material. In June I read 6 titles, July had 11, and August had 8. I think I did pretty good, don't you?

As for Adam's challenge, I did make a sent in the titles I needed to read. I read 4 titles (so I missed my goal by 1). The books I read to fit his challenge were Ceremony, Dubliners, Wise Blood and Jude the Obscure. I can still complete his challenge if I bust my butt a bit this fall.

Shakespeare was a huge fail. While I pulled a couple of plays to read, they are still sitting on my nightstand. I decided at the beginning of August that I would read more this fall, and I am toying with the idea of reading only Shakespeare during October's readathon (a good way to challenge myself).

I did read more for my Bible Reading Project, but I haven't updated my page or my progress on Goodreads. And I'm okay with that.


The other goals I had were also book-related.

Here they are:

"I shared with you my book database not too long ago, and I mentioned that I was struggling with it. I lost the most updated version of the file last year with a slew of computer problems, and I have been slowly trying to bring it up to date. The biggest issue with that is that most of my massive collection is boxed up, so hauling out boxes and checking them in is a pia. I kind of "gave up" back in April with the intensity of school, so this is a big project that needs to be fixed. More specifically, this is what I want to accomplish by August 31:

• Update book database by relogging in EVERY title I own
• Cull duplicates and books I no longer want. Either donate or ship to bloggers who want them
• Re-organize bookshelves in the living room. I have three-two big bookcases and one narrow case. Currently the narrow bookcase is home to some hardcover collections and newer YA titles. One big bookcase is full of classics, as well as two and a half shelves on the other. And, with recent acquisitions, some of the shelves are being double-stacked...that needs to be fixed."

I have made progress here too!

I started to relog titles and managed to finish the books that are out in the apartment (3 full bookcases and 1 with some of my prettier/older editions). I also started to go through boxes, but life got in the way.

I did cull a bunch of books that I had doubles of (hello blogversary giveaways), but I still have too many books. I need to seriously look through the 20+ boxes in the closets and decide what I absolutely need to keep. I know there are some things I will just never get to. I might have a long time ago, but my tastes are changing.

I also reorganized my shelves! Well, I did it once back in July and it already needs to be done again. Originally I had one shelf just for my classics, but with so many acquisitions over the last two years, that shelf is FULL. My other shelf used to just hold "fun" books-some of my favorite series, etc. Now, the second big bookshelf has four full shelves taken up just with overflow classics. Some of my "fun" reads have been packed away (and there are more that need to be). But, everything is still pretty much alphabetized and I have been much better about reorganizing as soon as I get a new stack.


The other thing I was going to attempt to do was create a master list of all my reviews, and while I have started it, it is taking forever. Because I write multiple posts for most of the books I read, it has taken me a bit to find a way to make this work for me. It is a work in progress, and maybe I can launch that page by the end of the year.


However, there is one excellent piece of news I do want to share! Over this weekend, I have made an effort to finalize and schedule all the drafted posts sitting on my dashboard. And you'll be happy to know that I did it! All of the posts are completely written, pictures included, tags in, and scheduled to go up on their appointed days. I have not been caught up like this in over a year! HUGE accomplishment! And while I still want to have my reviews go up AS I am reading a novel, I can't do it unless I bombard you with posts for the next week (I will say that the furthest post is scheduled for September 16, so it could be worse). I just feel a lot better about going back to teaching and having less time to blog with all of that take care of!


Anyway, I thought this would be a good time to touch base with how I did this summer. I think I did well, even if I am not where I want to be. For the longest time I felt I would never pass 100 books, so I am glad I did. The next goal is 125, which means I'll be halfway done!

How did your summer reading go? Were you as obsessed as I was with planning?