The Project

The Date: Mid March, 2011
The Setting: My apartment bedroom
The Mood: Contemplative

It was just your average day in March when I decided to start a project that could last as long as eight years. Obviously, this journey would need to be chronicled. Hence, this blog.

I suppose it might be helpful to provide a little background on myself for those of you who haven't read one of my other blogs. I am currently a senior at Texas Christian University, though I will graduate in May and move on to bigger and better things that are as of yet undetermined. I double majored in Art History and English, which basically means that I read and write more than any sane person would ever want to. Still, I love it. I've loved reading since I was young and first read "Danny and the Dinosaur" by myself. Since then, my love of reading has been encouraged by my parents, who gave me books as rewards and took them away as punishment; by teachers, who challenged me to read new and challenging things; and by the books themselves, which were constantly revealing new lessons and characters to learn from.

Anyways, back to the project. I had recently come into the possession of a reading journal, which is in and of itself quite the aesthetically pleasing object. I was entering my first book into the journal (C.S. Lewis' Screwtape Letters, if you wanted to know), and I decided to look at the back of the journal. The back holds numerous lists of books that have one various awards, are bestsellers, that everyone should read, etc. Just for curiosity's sake, I started marking off which books I had read.

Now, I am a very very very prolific reader. I'm sure the librarians of my childhood thought I was the oddest child ever, since on my basically bi-weekly visits I would inevitably leave with a stack of books about ten high ranging from historical fiction to mythology to biology to children's literature to languages and just about everything in between. I have a lot of books. I've read a lot of books. So, imagine my surprise when I discovered that, on the list of The Modern Library's 100 Best Novels, I had only read three of these books. That's right. Three.

Obviously, this would not do. I needed a plan. I needed to read this books. But how? With school, I haven't had a lot of time for 'fun' reading in the past few months. So, expecting more than one book a month when I'll likely be in grad school for a few years is a bit much. So, at least one book a month. There are 97 books I need to read, and one book a month, twelve months in a year....oh dear. Eight years. I don't know if I've done anything for eight years, except band, and I was always switching instruments so that doesn't seem to apply. It will certainly be a triumph if I succeed, and I intend to. I also plan on reading more than a book a month, so hopefully this won't actually take me eight years.

So, in summary:
The Project: Read every book on The Modern Library's 100 Best Novels list
The goal: At least one book a month
The timeline: Up to eight years (yikes)

Please, follow me to keep track of my journey! I'll be reviewing each book when I finish and keeping track on here...there will probably also be quotes and trivia and miscellaneous fun, because that's how I roll. You could even read along with me!

Happy reading,
Ashley