I have an announcement to make.

I officially LOVE to read.

I used to be very indifferent to books and reading. It was always so hard for me to sit down and read. My mom can testify to that. She’d always try to get me to read, but I was never interested.

What I have always loved is checklists. I love to make to-do lists, and then check everything off as I finish them. I remember times when I’d put things like “wake-up” on my checklist just so that I’d get to make an extra little check mark next to it.

Blair had this list of books that a friend made him that was just 13 or 14 books long. He had asked his friend to make a broad list of classics from various time periods and places that were must-reads so that he could be a little more well-read. When I found this out about Blair, I went in search of a list of my own. I never liked reading, but loved those checklists…

So I went online and found a list of books about 150 books long. I was feeling extra ambitious that day, so I turned it into the list you can find in my right hand column with a goal to read one a month and finish in about 14 years.

Then I was at Barnes and Noble one day and grabbed their list. It had a lot of other books that weren’t on my list, so I added them to my list, making it a whopping 299 books long (and now the list is going to take 25 years…at best) The books that have the stars next to them are the ones that were on both lists…so I’ll probably try to read those ones first.

I started by reading The Aeneid by Virgil. Can I just say…that the only good thing about starting with that ‘book’ (it’s not even really a book, but a poem) is that I was able to get it over with while I was still feeling so ambitious. Boy, was it tough. And to this day…I’m not really sure I even know a tenth of what it’s about. But it’s done!

I kept going, one by one, and definitely didn’t do so well with the ‘once a month’ thing, but I kept pushing, and finished some amazing books. Every time I get done with another book, I feel so fulfilled. Even if I don’t really like it, I feel like I can always pull something from it.

So, today I decided to make it official. I really enjoy reading. Maybe it’s like how running is for some people. It’s really hard to stay dedicated at first, but once you get going, it’s addicting!

Some of my favorites to date are:

1984-George Orwell

The Count of Monte Cristo-Alexandre Dumas

Dracula-Bram Stoker

A Tale of Two Cities-Charles Dickens

The Odyssey-Homer