The Roger Hargreaves Confabulation

Please excuse the second rate Big Bang Theory reference, but I'm about to get all mathematical on yo' asses (well, arses actually). It's December and I've only managed to get through a paltry 129 books. Granted, a few of them exceeded the 800 page mark, but still it's a pretty unimpressive haul. My obsessive need to achieve round numbers suggests that the nearest milestone I can reach without going absolutely crazy is 150. This would also represent a fair total in light of my average since I first started keeping track five years ago. 2006 saw me knock over a somewhat unremarkable 105 books. In 2007 it was 101. I peaked in 2008 with a massive 251 books (and a totally fried brain), but offset that with 2009's measly 85. To be fair, that was the year of classics and epics, so most of the books were massive. Last year I managed a satisfactory 155, which leaves me with an average of 139.4 books read per year over 5 years.

I'd like to think 2011 is an above-average year, so I'll have to get through at least 10 to be at all satisfied. I'll do my best not to make it into the crazy obsession it became in 2008, when I spent all day and night throughout December trying to top 250. Perhaps I ought to just cheat and rip through the collected Mr. Men series by Roger Hargreaves. That kind of crap worked when I was a kid doing the MS Read-a-thon. However, I'd really like to read Erin Morgenstern's The Night Circus, and the latest from Aharon Appelfeld. Ditto David Grossman's To The End Of The Land which I neglected to read last year. Now I think about it, I also really need to finish the last two books in Beckett's Molloy trilogy seeing as one of my new year's resolutions depends on it.

So there's the December challenge. Can I possibly do it? Oh the petit bourgeoise sufferings of a semi-employed litnerd!