My Reading List(s) Overfloweth

I recently finished organizing many of my reading wishlists into one massive list, some 800 titles long. (And that still doesn't include many classics that I'd like to read, but feel pretty intimidated trying to tackle on my own.) In the interests of not losing my mind about how many wonderful books I should be reading, I've decided to methodically chip away at the list. Every month, I'll choose 15 books to attempt to read, from 10 specific categories plus two "fun" "books of my choice." (The quotations are because these selections will probably end up being determined by books I've started and haven't gotten around to finishing, but feel I ought to. Not necessarily fun at all, you see.) The 10 categories are: Caldecott Medal/Honor Books, Newbery Medal Books, Classics, Adult Fiction, Adult Non-Fiction, Young Adult, Fantasy, Folk/Fairy Tale/Mythology, Poetry/Drama, and Mystery/Historical Fiction.

I plan on choosing 4 Caldecott books each month, because I enjoy them a lot, can share them with my 2-year-old son, and they go really quickly, which gives me a huge sense of accomplishment! I've been plugging away at the Newbery Medal winners since I started library school 5 years ago (sheesh! that long?), and had gotten away from them, so I'm making a new effort. It's not that I don't like them (I can count on one hand the Newbery winners that I've disliked, and I've read several dozen), it's just that, as I may have mentioned, there are so many other tempting books to lose myself in...

The other categories are all either catch-alls (adult fic/non-fic, etc.) or genres that I especially prefer (fantasy, YA, historical fiction). Plus, I was an English major, and will feel until the day I die that I haven't read enough classics, or poetry or drama, for that matter. In fact, when I read too much genre fiction or modern stuff, I begin to feel that I'm letting someone down. I can't think who it might be, but it's a pretty powerful sensation, so I feel I ought to do something about that, too. Oh, dear...

I haven't really any expectation that I'll actually be able to get through 15 books a month, even if 4 of them are picture books. I do plan to limit myself to reading the books from my list before other books, however, and plan to move books to the next month that I haven't finished, or (gulp) even managed to start. I might should make myself tackle those first, even, but that might be too many rules even for me.

On the off-chance that I manage to get through all of my selections, anything is fair game, which I don't expect to happen often.

As I've managed to knock 50 titles off my reading list in the past few months, I'm already down to 750, and I hope I can knock that down another 50 by the end of the year. I'll post updates, but they're mostly for myself, since I can't imagine anyone else finding my Quest to Read Every Book that Looks Interesting (to me) will be compelling to anyone else.