For a lot of people, the idea of getting older is appalling. They fret when they find their first grey hair or notice the first wrinkle. As I approach my 40th birthday, I find that I am not ashamed when I say I’m almost 40. It doesn’t bother me to get older, because I realized a few years ago just how far I have come. Perhaps it’s because I’m sharing this new stage with someone who will be entering their 40’s just a few weeks before me. I won’t be navigating the start of my 40’s alone. Or maybe it’s nice to get to the stage where you can care just a little less about what other people believe.
Either way, as I move closer to 40, I find that I am craving for a reason to return to my days of blogging, especially about books. If you looked at my blog, you’d assume I’d only read a handful of books over the past few years. Truth is, I have read countless new books as I have become more experienced in my career as an educator. What I have failed to do is review the books or discuss my journey. Sometimes, I find that I dive so head first into whatever thing I am hyper focused on, that the rest of the world, including my own desires, fall to the wayside.
So, I’m going to challenge myself to read 40 books by 40.
When the idea originally came to me, I thought about doing the top book for every year of my life. Of course, I would choose the top book from the year before my birth, because otherwise I wouldn’t be able to read 40 books then. As I looked into this, I ran into a little problem: how do you determine the “top book”? Do I choose strictly fiction? What about nonfiction? Do I choose the top selling books? The ones who dominated the New York Times best-sellers list? It was too many choices.
Then, I considered using a listing that I had seen before about the top book for the year you were born. I couldn’t find the exact list I had originally seen (which listed The Handmaid’s Tale as the top book in 1985). Instead I saw a variety of others that often included a ton of books from 2000 on that I had read. While I’m all for rereading books I enjoyed, I despise reading books in the middle of a series. I would get hung up on needing to read the entire series up to that point, which would of course, add a ton of books to my list… which would also leave me less likely to complete it.
Instead, I am choosing to follow Penguin Random House’s 40 Books to Read Before You’re 40. I’m almost embarrassed to admit that I haven’t read a single book on this list… which includes Wuthering Heights, Great Expectations, and Leaves of Grass. Now, I have read some of each of these… in high school. However, by senior year, my focus wasn’t the best and I’m sure I skimmed just enough to pass the class. As an educator, I feel bad now about it, but when you are young… you don’t always give things the same amount of attention that you would when you are a little older.
Now, it’s a lot of books, and let’s be honest: I am busy. It’s summer break, and I have barely had any downtime to do much reading. So I using audiobooks at times. I spend a lot of time in my car driving, so it will help me ensure I can dedicate the time and focus I need to embark on this challenge. The best part is that my library had every book either in a physical copy, digital copy, or as an audiobook. This means I will also do what I do from time to time, where I will go back and forth from reading the book and listening to the book.
Starting off, I will be reading Emily Bronte’s Wuthering Heights. I would love to claim I am doing it as a means of finishing something I started so many years ago. But the truth is that I took the titles of all of the books that are available at this very moment and used a list randomizer from random.org.
Regardless, I’m excited to get started and will begin the book this very afternoon. Wish me luck!
The Writer's Inkwell 