So I like to read. A lot. I read books, magazines, newspapers, blogs, even the back of the cereal box if nothing better is available. I typically read over 100 books a year in addition to several periodicals, the newspaper and a number blogs. Not only do I love to read I love books themselves, beautiful bindings, great illustrations and the lovely way they line up on the shelves so colorful and expressive. I’m happiest when I’ve a good book in my hands and an unlimited amount of time in which to read it. Which brings us to the proverbial fly in the ointment. I have a one-year-old son and a brand new baby boy too. So that unlimited time thing is gone the way of the buffalo, vamoosed, generally disappeared. I went from reading over a hundred books in 2006 to a mere 50 or so in 2007 and if the trend continues I’m looking at about 25 or less for 2008 and if what they say about mommy-brain is true those 25 will probably be a mix of Goodnight Moon 24 times and a quick perusal of Breastfeeding for Dummies.

So in an effort to avert this disastrous decline of my intellectual capacity and pathetic loss of my favorite activity I’m setting out to read an ambitious list of books in 2008. Come midnight feedings or cranky toddlers I’m planning to read two hundred books this year which breaks down to 0.55 books per day or 216 pages. It will probably take more effort than I can currently imagine; I probably won’t be reading any of my usual periodicals or watching any television and I’ll have to strategize carefully to always have a book at hand but I think the challenge will do me good. I think I’ll end up with a book in the bathroom for those brief moments of peace and quiet, I’ll likely stash one in the car for long stoplights (don’t honk at me I’ll go when I finish the paragraph) and I know I’ll have one by my rocking chair for those times that the baby is fussy at 3am. I wonder how much sense I’ll make of Machiavelli at that hour?

Because I don’t just enjoy the experience of reading but also love to collect and handle well-crafted volumes I’m planning on purchasing all of these books from Everyman’s Library. Also I appreciate both their goal of publishing books for everyone and the beautiful way they bind them. I have based my reading list on their “Everyman’s 100 Essentials” and included the 39 volumes of the “Children’s Classics” set so that I could read them aloud to my boys (another strategy for getting the necessary 216 pages a day in) then I added the titles from the “Contemporary Classics” set not already covered by the Essentials set. and found a few more to round out the number to 200. So now I’m facing down more books than I’ve ever read in a year including some fairly dense volumes and I’m getting scared…