I love reading.
I've realized that it's something that I don't talk a lot about here considering how much I think that I read.
First off, I'm not a speed reader. Since my early years in college, I realized that I read, on average, about one page every two minutes with a mass market paperback sized book. With some books (A Storm of Swords, The Stand, Mort) I can manage about one and-a-half minute per page. And often enough, every time I finish a book I have somewhat of a hard time deciding what next to read. Granted I have no shortage of books that I haven't read, but it's like when you (used to) walk into a movie rental store with a general idea, but once you see the stacks of movies lined up, your mind goes blank and you all of a sudden don't know what kind of film you want to watch.
This summer (and probably longer) I found something that will help with my dilemma (which is a word that I cannot spell without help). My friend Megan over at TheWhynottBlog, via the Books on the Nightstand podcast started doing a Summer Reading Bingo project that started back on June 1st.
Now I don't plan on approaching this the same way that Megan is, but instead I'll be running my own BINGO game. I went to the BotN page for my own BINGO card and after hitting the refresh link twice I had a card that I was happy with that included the following 24 (out of a possible 48) categories:
- B
- Reread something
- With a number in the title
- Nonfiction
- That you saw someone else reading
- An audiobook
- I
- Has been on your TBR for longer than two years
- Science Fiction
- Recommended by a family member
- Published in 2014
- Set in another country
- N
- Fantasy
- That you think you will dislike
- FREE SQUARE
- Poetry Collection
- Six words or more in the title
- G
- That you chose because of the cover
- Part of a series
- Longer than 500 pages
- Graphic novel
- With a child on the cover
- O
- By an author who shares your first name
- Found in a used bookstore
- With a red cover
- Thriller/Suspense
- With a one-word title
Megans plan is to act as BINGO Master (if that's actually a name) and she'll pull a category from the master list every week although being able to read a book a week is not a requirement (it was a requirement for the "Film as Narrative" class I took during summer school in college). The goal is to acquire a BINGO by August 31st, allowing enough time to read at least 4-5 books.
After the BINGO occurs though, I'll probably just go for blackout at that point as I'm looking forward to deciding which books will fill that particular category. I'm trying really hard not to pick out which book will fill which category before I pick but it's hard not looking at a category like "Fantasy" and not immediately thinking of something by C.S. Lewis, Terry Pratchett or J.R.R. Tolkien. Oh, and I should also say that with the exception of the "Reread something" tile, everything that I read with be something that I have not read before, hence one of the whole reasons for doing this.
When I first started as in a week ago, I was reading Jam by Yahtzee Croshaw (post coming soon) and The World Without Us by Alan Weisman. So I just picked The World Without Us to fill the FREE SQUARE space. The tiles that Megan has chosen (as of 6/27/2014) have been "Poetry Collection," "Audio Book," "Recommend by BotNS" and "Science Fiction." So it looks like I am going to have to find a collection of poetry, although I do have a collection of H.P. Lovecraft's poetry contained within a larger volume of his collected works. That will suit just fine.
As is the case with standard BINGO, since my card does not contain the "Recommended by BotNS," once I reach that category, I'll skip it and go to "Audio Book," of which I have a pretty nice selection from a past Humble Audio Book Bundle a while back. "Science Fiction" will also be an interesting choice since I have some modern SciFi that I haven't read as well as some that were considered SciFi when they were written back in the early 20th century. It will be interesting to see when I know I will get BINGO and how long it will take me to read all the necessary books to do so.
So go and visit The Whynott Blog for Summer Book BINGO and for other book related bloggings as you're more likely to find a greater variety of books than what I would be able to give you.
~JWfW/JDub/Jaconian
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