# My goal for the new year is to read 50 books.  Help me out?

**URL:** <https://boards.straightdope.com/t/my-goal-for-the-new-year-is-to-read-50-books-help-me-out/145155>\
**Category:** Cafe Society\
**Created:** [December 27, 2002, 2:19pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/my-goal-for-the-new-year-is-to-read-50-books-help-me-out/145155 "2002-12-27T14:19:49Z")\
**Posts on this page:** 5\
**Page:** 5

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**Author:** ![Northpole](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/n/dfb087/32.png) [@Northpole](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Northpole)\
**Post date:** [December 9, 2012, 12:56pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/my-goal-for-the-new-year-is-to-read-50-books-help-me-out/145155/81 "2012-12-09T12:56:16Z")

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Anthony Powell: A Dance to the Music of Time  
Julian Barnes: Nothing to be frightened of

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**Author:** ![Lamia](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/l/8e7dd6/32.png) [@Lamia](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Lamia)\
**Post date:** [December 9, 2012, 4:39pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/my-goal-for-the-new-year-is-to-read-50-books-help-me-out/145155/82 "2012-12-09T16:39:22Z")

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Just so everyone knows, this thread is nearly a decade old.

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**Author:** ![puddleglum](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/puddleglum/32/137_2.png) [@puddleglum](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/puddleglum)\
**Post date:** [December 9, 2012, 4:47pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/my-goal-for-the-new-year-is-to-read-50-books-help-me-out/145155/83 "2012-12-09T16:47:19Z")

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I did a challenge like this in college, one book every week. What I found that short books are great whenever life circumstances dont allow all the time for reading you would like. Books written before 1900 tend to be very wordy, there are books that dont introduce the main caracter for 50 to 100 pages.  
There are lots of great short books, A Chrstmas Carol, The Razors Edge, To Kill a Mockingbird, Animal Farm, Homage toCatalonia, Til We Have Faces, Enders Game, The Moon is a Harsh Misstress, and The Last Year of the War.  
I found that Kafka was a very slow read and Paradise Lost was slow as well. Big epic type books are great to kind of luxuriate in but having a goal of finishing can lead to not enjoying the longer books as much because you have aclock in the back of your head.

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**Author:** ![Thudlow\_Boink](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/thudlow_boink/32/320_2.png) [@Thudlow\_Boink](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Thudlow_Boink)\
**Post date:** [December 9, 2012, 5:27pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/my-goal-for-the-new-year-is-to-read-50-books-help-me-out/145155/84 "2012-12-09T17:27:04Z")

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> [@Lamia](#):
>
> Just so everyone knows, this thread is nearly a decade old.

So the OP would have read around 500 books by now!

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**Author:** ![chrisk](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/c/6de8d8/32.png) [@chrisk](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/chrisk)\
**Post date:** [December 10, 2012, 2:08am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/my-goal-for-the-new-year-is-to-read-50-books-help-me-out/145155/85 "2012-12-10T02:08:04Z")

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Wow.

I’ve been doing ‘52 book year’ for a little while now. I only really started for 2011 in August, (though I added some books that I remember reading earlier in the year.) and got up to 34. For 2012, I included several books that I was in the middle of as of New Year’s Day - and I’m already up to 64.

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