50 Books Project
11 May 2008
“A home without books is a body without soul.”
–Marcus Tullius Cicero
I’m planning to read 50 books between June 2008 and May 2009. Read the Prologue, Part 1, from May 12, 2008 to learn what this is all about.
You’re welcome to follow my progress. The titles I plan to read are shown in the Google Spreadsheet below and also separately here. Look for regular updates on the blog as well. Titles for the current month will be shaded in green, completed titles will be shaded in blue, and titles on which I’ve fallen behind will be shaded in red.
NICE~! I’m impressed and jealous!
Why does the list only consist of how-to McBooks? A good piece of literature will let you discover how-to rather than simply be told how-to.
Excellent. My wife and I seem to horde books but I’m not good at getting through them. Not making time, basically. Perhaps posting a spreadsheet like this publicly would help. Nice idea.
Also, thought I’d mention, there is a service that lets you read books by RSS or Email. These are works in the public domain but it is an interesting way to nibble a way at classics. Blogged about it here: http://is.gd/p9P
Try out http://www.goodreads.com a great website to track your books, maybe a little easier than a spreadsheet? I dunno. A suggestion, I like the site. Plus it will be nice to find other suggestions after you get through this 50, you can bump it up to 60 next year
The Wealthy Barber and E-Myth Revisited were both good. Enjoy the reading.
Skip “The World Is Flat” If you know how a computer works. It looks like you do.
Remember how much more important quality is over quantity! Absorbing and processing the material is essential, otherwise you are wasting your time, and the words of the authors are just floating into space. I am very impressed, few people could read a book a week. The only reason I can read a few a week is because I am taking time off in between jobs and waiting for school to start in January. Also, another good thing to do is to underline words you would like to ad to your vocabulary and write them down in a moleskine or something! Good luck! Don’t un-focus your eyes for a second!
No literature on your list? 50 books in a year is great, but I didn’t see a single book on that list more than fifty years old.
I’d maybe drop a few of the self-helpish books and pick up some classics. That way you know the ideas presented to you have been tested and found worthy of preservation. I doubt that the average American will know the name of any author on your list even 25 years from now.
Fair point, GoodWord. At the moment the list is geared toward “need-to-know” subjects for work and personal interest. My undergrad major was English (American and British lit) and I’ve spent a good amount of time with Hemingway and Dickens over the years. Next year’s list will likely feature more fiction, including classics.
Wishing you have a great time reading those books..