Take the 10/10/10 challenge

Fresh off the winds of November, widely known in writing circles as National Novel Writing Month or NANOWRIMO, or writing a 50,000 word novel in a month, I would like to present readers and writers with a new challenge. Please consider taking the 10/10/10 challenge: read 10 books, in each of 10 genres in 10 months from January 1st to October 31st.You should read genres that you do not normally read.  That would be 10 books a month for 100 books by the end of the challenge period.

I read an interesting essay as November began this year. The writer opined that while we were all so busy writing bad novels, there was a lot of great reading to be done and maybe we shouldn't waste our time writing bad fiction when we could become better writers simply by reading more.  We need to read more. She then introduced me to 10/10/10.

I gave up on NANOWRIMO several years ago. I just couldn't get excited about churning out really bad prose any more, and after reading this essay I am sure it was the right choice. Now I am intrigued by reading 100 books next year. I am an avid reader and my best reading record so far is 52 books in a year--a book a week. So this challenge seems daunting, but the spirit of it is simply to stretch beyond one's normal reading preferences to read things one would not normally read. And maybe, just maybe, to learn something about writing and the world.

So join me--in reading some new books in the new year. The first one on my list is a book of short stories by Nobel Prize winner Alice Monro.  What is the first new book on your list?

 Amy for the PGM.