Unofficial TBR 2011 Progress Report

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This is the unofficial TBR 2011 progress report. Well, the report itself isn’t what’s unofficial. What’s unofficial is my participation in the TBR 2011 challenge (because I didn’t make my list before the challenge officially started), but the report itself is actually about as official as it gets, being that it’s coming from me and I’m the one reading the damn books after all aren’t I?

A note for the confused: please refer to my previous post about the TBR Challenge

I was hoping to read at least 12 books this year and as I write this I’m not sure where I stand. I know I’ve read quite a few but I haven’t counted. I was planning on standing up and walking over to the bookshelf, pulling out all the books I’ve read and counting them, although they might not all be on the shelf so I’ll also have to take a minute to think, to make sure that I’m not missing anything. If I am, well, then I’ll take a stroll around the apartment to see if I can’t find the missing books. I don’t know if I’d report them missing just yet. Let’s just say… misplaced.

I’m getting ahead of myself. Maybe they’re all right where I expect them to be: on that shelf right over there to which, any minute now, I’m gonna walk over and look at and count some books.

Ah, there we go. A stack of books. Ones that I’ve read. Feels good, doesn’t it? What? Well, I wouldn’t expect you to feel good about my particular stack of books. I mean why would you? You haven’t read them like I have. Just pretend it’s your stack of books. Actually if you’re gonna pretend it’s your stack of books, wait until after you read the rest of this post. For now let’s stick with my books.

So far in 2001 I have read the following books cover-to-cover, and in some cases even read about the author or some other such nonsense that was included in the book but not within the standard chapters that you’re actually expected to read.

I’m no math expert, but I’d say that’s 11 books. And we all know what comes after 11. Well, most of us do. (Hint: It’s 12) With another 3 full months left in this, the two thousand and eleventy-twelfth year of our lord, A.D., I can hardly imagine how many books I’ll have read by the start of 2012.

13? 14? Maybe even 53? It all seems possible. If you want to play along and finish out the year with me, first pretend you’ve read all the books listed above and then jump right in on p 90 of “A Supposedly Fun Thing I’ll Never Do Again” by David Foster Wallace.

Also if you want to go back and pretend my stack of books is your stack of books, now would be a good time. You don’t have to. I just wanted to mention it again in case you were looking forward to that. I could have distracted you since then (and it was my idea to begin with) so it’s only fair that I bring it up again.