New Project

Alright, I realized today that I really need to get my ass off the Internet and actually read some books. It just kind of hit me when I looked at all the poor unread tomes sitting on my shelves and heard the cries from the ones stuffed under my bed. So I made these rules:

1. Read one book a week for a whole year.
2. They can be any subject, fiction or non-fiction.
3. Comic books and graphic novels do not count, thats too easy.
4. Kids books are alright but they have to be actual novels, again, that would be too easy.

If anyone wants to do this with me and see if they can keep up, that would be really cool too. Everyone needs to read more books!

Since I've been obsessed with Irish culture lately, the first few books are going to be all Ireland related. I was at the library today and found a small shelf corner where a small selection of books on Irish History were sitting lonely and I borrowed the first one I grabbed:

A History of Modern Ireland With a Sketch of Earlier Times by Giovanni Costigan. It's old and falling apart but it looks like a good place to start.

Check back next Monday to see if I was able to make it one week!

Books

I realized today that I'm a writer that hardly reads at all. Thats really sad because I used to read everything I could get my hands on. I decided to remedy that today by going to the both the bookstore and the library. To my surprise I didn't get any of the fiction I intended to, I ended up getting a bunch of non-fiction science books.

Bookstore:
A Brief History of Time (10th Anniversary Edition) by Stephen Hawking

Library:
Billions and Billions, Thoughts on Life and Death at the Brink of the Millennium by Carl Sagan

The Reluctant Mr. Darwin by David Quammen

I couldn't find Lovecraft anywhere. Not surprising, but I also couldn't find a copy of Darwin's Origin of the Species. Is that a banned book you think? Oh well, I ordered it from Amazon, should be interesting. I'll have to read it in public to see if anyone says anything.

Also, I want to get into Charles Dickens as I was never able to before. I think having him shoved down my throat in high school pretty much ruined any joy I would get out of reading his work. Does anybody like Dickens? What book should I start with?

I suppose I should end with a list of my favorite books ever. Here's a few that I couldn't put down:

Richard Adams:
Watership Down
The Plague Dogs

Stephen King:
It
The Stand
The whole Dark Tower series
Carrie
The Shining

Harper Lee - To Kill a Mockingbird (absolutely everyone should read this book but not in school. Read it on your own, its so much better. Then watch the movie).

Kevin Murphy - A Year at the Movies

Bram Stoker - Dracula (boy did I have some weird dreams while I read this one!)

H.G. Wells:
The Island of Dr. Moreau
The Time Machine
The Invisible Man

Anything and everything by Ray Bradbury.