So I have taken on a reading challenge for 2011. Yes, I know, those of you who know me are thinking that this is nothing new, I read all the time, yadda yadda, blah blah blah. But this is a formal challenge – 111 in ’11 – which is a feature on another blog that we found. Basically, this book blogger set up her own challenge to read 111 books this year and is inviting others to join her. There will be monthly check-ins to monitor progress, and everyone who completes the challenge will be eligible to win free books (Free Books she said!) at the end of the year. The challenge was set up using a cool looking site called GoodReads which allows you to set a numeric challenge for yourself and to track your progress online. You will notice a widget for my personal 111 challenge. At this moment, I am behind schedule with twenty-two books (19% of the challenge) logged to date. While I knew this year’s numbers were low, it was still a little sad and surprising to see it in black-and-white, especially given that I have averaged 131.375 books per year over the past eight years (no, I’m NOT a huge dork; ok, well, maybe I am. Sigh.).

The whole I’m-already-behind-in-the-challenge thing got me thinking about reading and time and how many people I know who claim (and I am inclined to believe them) that they would love to read more but just don’t seem to be able to find the time. Time, it seems, is the great enemy of us all – particularly readers. If you read seriously (defined any way you like), you probably find it difficult to read in five-minute (or even fifteen-minute) windows; I certainly do. But finding chunks of time that are longer than that, when things are quiet and there are no other distractions, is very difficult. I am learning to read in smaller time chunks and with interruptions – this is greatly increasing my ability to find pockets of reading time, but it has been an adjustment since previously I was a die-hard Sit-In-A-Quiet-Room-For-At-Least-An-Hour kind of reader. But let’s be honest, that doesn’t really work for most lives – mine included.
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