Making a List

But not checking it twice. I'm kind of late for one of those lists (there ain't no way I'm that early!).

But the list that I'm thinking of is also late.

Every December for the last 15 to 20 years, I've made a list of books that I want to read over the coming year. The list includes a dozen or so books, and with the exception of the past couple of years I blaze through that list of titles.

Over the past couple of years, on my other blog, I've put a call out for your recommendations and have added some of those titles to my reading list. Last year, my list was so long that I was unable to finish reading the books, and so I moved the unread titles to my 2011 reading list, plus some new books that were recommended to me. I also added a couple of books that were written by authors that I follow on Twitter and LinkedIn.

Well, 2011 was another busy year and I didn't complete the list. In truth, I got bogged down reading Billy Budd, and sometime in November I stopped reading. Don't get me wrong: Billy Budd was good. It's just that it took a lot of concentration to read it and I was mostly doing so on my early morning commutes to work, when my brain was only waking up. That, and I found it hard to read without Morrissey's song popping into my head, muddling lyrics with the words on the page.

In December and January, I got bogged down with reading and re-reading my own book, which was in its final stages and required me to review the proofs, looking for publisher errors, as well as my own. Let me tell you: reading your own work over and over again isn't fun. I just hope that I don't get sick of it before it hits store shelves.

So now I'm thinking that I need to make my reading list for 2012. I haven't read the last six books in my list (yes, I put my list in order and I stick to it—I'm anal that way) so I intend to move them to this year's list.

Once again, I'm going to ask you to suggest a book that you feel I absolutely cannot get through 2012 without reading. Because I have so many followers now, I'm afraid I won't be able to add all of your recommendations, so I'll give you until midnight on Tuesday, February 10. I'll choose three books from the list of recommendations and will post the list on Thursday, February 12. The three people whose book I choose will get a PDF copy of my book, Songsaengnim: A Korea Diary, to add to their own reading list.

Sound good?

If more than one person recommends a book and I choose that title, I'll add those folks to a list and randomly pick a name.

That's it. Recommend away!