For me, the trusty blank book was always my perfect tool. I have a whole shelf of book-books. Combined, they list every book I've read (minus the picture books) since 1987.
This year, when Goodreads unveiled the barcode scanner in the iPhone app, I began logging EVERY book I read in Goodreads. I still kept my book-book for novels (kid and adult) and for most of this year I wrote down a key quote for each book. (Other years, I've captured the first line or I've written a short summary.)
So I read more than 300 books this year, but in the end, I'm not at all satisfied with myself as a reader in 2011. My desires for my reading far outstrip the reality of what I know I can accomplish. I'd love to do the #nerdbery or #nerdcott challenges, but I know that wanting to do either one would never make them actually happen. Heck, I can't even do the #bookaday challenges with any kind of honesty and integrity! I think part of my problem is that when I hear about everything everyone else is reading, I want to read all those books and do all those challenges, too. It's a keeping up with the Joneses syndrome, but it's also about wanting to maintain my standing in the Nerdy Book Club, and there's a little bit of book gluttony thrown in. (All right, more than a little bit...)
Well, I've got a solution for this problem: I'm going to give myself permission to admire everyone else's goals and challenges...and I'm going to carry on with my own reading.
I've upped my personal goal to 92 children's and YA novels (I read 85 last year, so 92's not a huge stretch) and 20 adult books (I only read 15 last year, so 20 will be a push for me). 92+20 will give me 112 books in 2012 for the Centurions group on FaceBook. I'll keep track of picture books again this year just for the fun of seeing how high I can run my numbers up, but they won't really count for me.
Enough with the blathering about goals. Here's a sampling of some of my 5 Star books from 2011:
POETRY
Lemonade: And Other Poems Squeezed From A Single Word by Bob Raczka
BookSpeak!: Poems About Books by Laura Purdie Salas
ABC
E-Mergency by Tom Lichtneheld
PICTURE BOOKS
Stuck by Oliver Jeffers
I Want My Hat Back by Jon Klassen
NONFICTION
Balloons Over Broadway by Melissa Sweet
All the Water in the World by George Ella Lyon
MIDDLE GRADE
Clementine and the Family Meeting by Sara Pennypacker
The Friendship Doll by Kirby Larson
YA GRAPHIC NOVEL
Level Up by Gene Yang
Sita's Ramayana by Samhita Arni
ADULT
State of Wonder by Ann Patchett
Every Last One by Anna Quindlen
Pilgrim at Tinker Creek by Annie Dillard
(Ann, Anna and Annie -- quite a trio!)
