A reading challenge! Turn a new page in 2022 -- literally.
End 2021 on a high with a reading challenge! I challenge you to fill the final days of 2021 with well-thumbed pages and much loved books.
At this moment, my apartment is littered with stacks of books. They tower high on bedside tables and on the bench at the base of my bed. There is a stack on the side of the desk, and a handful of library books on the hallway side table. My tsundoku habit has gotten out of hand. I’m not a hoarder and I enjoy a tidy space — something needs to change.
I am not motivated to return the library books yet because I haven’t finished (started) reading them yet. So they have to stay. And the other stacks are littered around because, well, they are on my list to read.
When I was small our local library ran reading competitions on what felt like a regular basis. The idea was that you read as many books as possible and wrote down each of the titles on an official print-out sheet. After finishing each book I carefully wrote each authors name and book title in the appropriate columns. I took extra care to get the spelling correct and the shape of the letters just right. It was a habit that would leave me by the time I was a teenager. At 13 I discovered the joy of loopy cursive and replaced the plural ‘s’ with a ‘z’ to make me seem ~edgy~
At the end of the competition, you handed your sheet(z) of paper in and the librarians counted who read the most books. I can’t remember if I won (perhaps I did once?!) or what the prize was.
What stands out in my memory is the joy that came from sitting with a pile of books on your lap in the car on the way to return them at the library. I liked to thumb their spines and recall my favourite parts of each story; which matched my expectations and which left me disappointed. I liked comparing illustrations with storylines and deciding which one I liked best.
With this in mind, I decided the only solution to living amongst piles of books is to read as many as possible before the end of the year. Once they have been read they can then be returned to their home on the bookshelf. Not only will this clear mental and physical space, but it will also help with screen fatigue and Netflix burnout that inevitably comes with colder, darker days at this time of year.
☕️ 📚 Want to join me in a Sprout reading challenge? I’m going to be reading a little each day and will start a Substack thread to keep us connected — join me! 📖 Let’s enjoy filling the final days of 2021 with culture and words.
Below is the list I will be working my way through, or you can find it here on Bookshop.org 👀
Let us know what you are reading! 💭💬
Royals, Emma Forrest
Tiny Moons, A Year of Eating in Shanghai, Nina Mingya Powles
Women and Leadership: Lessons from some of the world’s most powerful women, Julia Gillard & Ngozi Okonjo-Iweala
Happy All the Time, Laurie Colwin
Sell Your Writing
I’ve received some great questions from people following on from last weekends post My writing story. Please keep sending your questions across! ✉️ I will collate them and package them into a FAQs newsletter soon.
Sell Your Writing commences 23 January 2022. Head to the course page for more information and details about what to expect on your learning journey.
Thanks for reading!
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