Moving out of a third floor walkup in to a second floor walkup got me pondering the weight of things. At first it was the literal, physical weight: as I packed my tenth or eleventh box full of our books, the idea of carrying them down and up four flights of stairs seemed overwhelmingly ridiculous. Then came the musings on the more abstract weight: why do we even own these books? Why do I still have my copy of Time and the Dancing Image from my college dance history course? Why has it been so important to move Shambhala: The Sacred Path of the Warrior, unread, to eleven different New York City apartments?
I made a decision. It was possibly rash; moving does that to me. It is certainly daunting; the books would be moved, but this was the last time they would be moved unread.
As I begin to execute the plan to read all of the books that we currently own, some ground rules:
1. I do not have to re-read anything that I have already read. Since I have read Little Women approximately 20 times over the past many years I can consider it read. However, I am not forbidden to re-read; if I want to make my task slightly harder due to an increased volume of books to complete, then so be it.
2. I do not have to read each cookbook that we own; however, I must make at least one recipe from each of the currently owned cookbooks.
3. I do not have to read reference material cover to cover. The American Heritage Dictionary, 501 Spanish Verbs, and the MLA Stylebook are all safe from the ravishes of the Bibliog. Project.
4. I do not have to read travel guides cover to cover. Lonely Planet Scotland and 20 Great Drives in Ireland will be reserved for our next trips to those locales.
5. New books must be accounted for as well, even if I leave them at the Fractured Atlas office! So while I just spent $150 on work-related books and plan to leave them firmly in the Wii lounge, I must still read them. My amazon.com account will bear testament to my trials.
6. Timeframe: 2011. We'll see where I am at the end of it.
By my rough reckoning I have approximately 150 books to finish within the next 10 months. I just finished Atul Gawande's excellent The Checklist Manifesto and Ian Ayers' Carrots and Sticks (both from the library, woe is me!). Given their relevance to my day-to-day work and the interest that these topics bear, the current plan is to start by digging into my (somewhat related) Lawrence Lessig books, Free Culture, Remix, and The Future of Ideas. I read Remix two years ago but think that it deserves a revisiting now; the other two, sadly, have been naught but "bookshelf candy" since then. Luckily, that's about to change.
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