The Ratings

To make life easier for me I've also devised a rating system. Every book gets a rating of 1-5 and here's what it means. (adapted from it's original form from the beginning of last year.)

5 - I loved it, I'm going to own it, I am in fact going to buy multiple copies and promote this book by handing them out for free at church socials and company picnics.

4 - I liked it. I definitely want to have a copy in my library and recommend it to most people.

3 - I liked it well enough, if I see a cheap used copy of it I'll snag it for my collection. I would recommend this book to some people or for specific reasons.

2 - I didn't hate, didn't like it either. I wouldn't generally recommend it to most people.

1 - I hated it or severely disliked it. There has to be a serious problem with the writing or the subject matter for a book to get this rating. In the last 2 years I've only run across 2 or 3 of these. The likelyhood that one of these will appear on the blog is pretty low since...why waste time on something so bad?

2006: How it went and how it didn't went and the 2007 challenge!!

Well, I won't call 2006 a flop because I got a lot of good reading done but I most definitely got derailed and didn't even come close to any of my goals. To avoid getting down about it I'm going to go ahead and close out this year a little early and get a jump on 2007.

So how'd I do?
Well I read about 65 books (not counting the ones that are going to end up under 2007 *shush don't tell anyone*). I discovered many new authors that I enjoyed even if I didn't love every one of them. I think I will continue to pursue some of those lists even if I don't do it in such a rigid way.

What went wrong?
Life intruded. It does that. A lot. *rolls eyes* A lot of good things happened for me and a lot of really tough things happened. Taking care of them just came out above reading. While I really enjoy the lists pursuing them the way I did was very rigid and not nearly as pleasurable as I'd thought it would be. I think planning about a month at a time is really all I should be doing.

So on to newer and brighter things...

2007 Challenge!

Pray for me. I'm trying for 200 again. I'm going to try going back to the roots by posting reading lists on a monthly basis and recaps at the end of each month. I'm keeping the rating system I devised for last year (5's really really good...1 is like a screwdriver to the eye)

I might pursue published reading lists but I'm only going to post them once I finish them with a review of the list.

As always I'll start over at book 1 at the beginning of the year for bookkeeping purposes. 20% of them (or 1 out of 5) needs to be non-fiction. I can't reread books from last year and have them count but I can from the year before that (2005) as long as I write a new review with new insights. Children's and Young Adult books are fair game as are manga and graphic novels.

The List of Lists - an Index for 2006

The purpose of this post is to create an index of the lists that I've tackled over the year and provide easier navigation. Click on a list title to take you to see the master post for a list. From there you can view the individual book reviews by clicking on their titles or look at the list review by clicking on the appropriate link at the bottom of the post. Click here to see an explination of this year's challange and the new rating system.

1. Connie Willis: Too Good To Miss -- (review)
2. Science Fiction, Fantasy, and Horror

a: Science Fiction
b: Fantasy
c: Horror

3. Academia: The Joke
4. Mothers and Daughters
5. Friend's List: Ryan L.
6. Friend's List: David L.
7. Dewey Deconstructed