A personal Challenge.

I bought a Kindle at the beginning of this year; not out of any real need, in fact I had only even read a couple of books in a little over a year since starting university! However, I talked myself into getting one as I often do with many things I don't really need.

6 months on and I've tried to expand my reading beyond my usual genres. I read the widely acclaimed Hunger Games trilogy (an excellent read in my opinion), I recently finished the original Bourne trilogy by Robert Ludlum and I even read a bit of Oscar Wilde to try and culture myself a little.

I still don't feel like I've fully utilised my Kindle though. That's why I'm going to set myself a sort of Challenge.

Having stumbled upon a BBC article from 2003 concerning the nation's favourite books (found here) I immediately decided to read them all.

30 seconds later having read through the list partway I decided that to read all of them was a stupid idea. I mean, really, Tracy Beaker? No.

Instead I will try my best to read all the books that do not seem too childish or are primarily aimed at those suited for bearing children. Having said that, I shan't (initially at least) shirk away from all the novels that seem a tad girly. I'm more than willing to give Pride and Prejudice at least a try. It is a classic after all.

As a child I read a great deal. The only issue was that they were generally the same books. I never liked to buy new books I knew nothing about so I stuck with what I knew. I can honestly say I know for certain that I have read the first 3 Harry Potter books a minimum of 30 times each. The later 4 around 15 times a piece. That may seem ridiculous, but it wasn't even confined to Harry Potter. The edges of the early Artemis Fowl books are severely worn by multiple readings. Even when I started to read more adult books, such as David Gemmell's works, I re read again and again.

I recently began a list of all the books I've ever read. To date (having just finished The Bourne Ultimatum 3 hours ago) I have read exactly 50 books. These books being ones I classify as proper novels and of which I can remember the story well (The Very Hungry Caterpillar for example, does not make the cut). Yet if instead of re reading the same books I had read something new, I think I could easily be in the 3 or 4 hundreds.

On reflection, my habit of re reading books was a terrible waste of my time. Time that could have been spent exploring something new.

My challenge does not have a specific end date, but I don't want it to be something that I forget about or don't commit to either. I want to feel like I'm making progress through the list. I'm going to stick strictly to the list, only breakig the order of it as a result of reading the next book in a series or trilogy.

So to begin, The Lord Of The Rings. I've owned this book for almost exactly 11 years now (basically I bought it when the films came out like everyone else) and never got around to reading it. Which is terrible really considering I've probably read through the 7 different Harry Potter books a collective 100 times or more.

Here's an interesting fact, The Lord Of The Rings is often mistaken for a trilogy. It is in fact a single novel consisting of 6 books.

Time to begin the longest novel I've ever read then.

1 Concerning Hobbits

This book is largely concerned with Hobbits...