Goals and Books

Since it's January, and I've been talking about goal setting lately, I thought I'd share one of mine.

I read a few books every year, for the past few years I've been keeping track of how many...last year I set a goal to read 52 books, I made it to 44 (unless I count each book of the New Testament separately then I exceeded my goal!) When I looked back at my reading list for 2008 it was even more eclectic than usual. I've always read business and leadership books as well as theology and spiritual, but last year saw an unusual mix. I enjoyed almost every book I read last year, the one exception off the top of my head was Stumbling on Happiness...just not that into it.

This year, I've decided to cut the goal in half. A book every two weeks, 26 for the year.

I'm doing this for a few reasons...

1. I have a three and a half year old son
2. I have a pregnant wife
3. I will soon have a newborn son
4. There are other things I want to spend more time with...see above

I try to keep a backlog of books in the library to read in the coming months, I'm going to let this dwindle a bit, not much new stuff coming out soon that I'm overly interested in, though I am looking forward to Dino Rizzo's new book Servolution. While I certainly don't plan every book I read for the year, in fact some of the best ones I read last year were picked up almost accidentally, I do have a few in the queue. Books I will definitely be reading this year include--
Sin Boldly
On Writing
The End of Poverty
Confessions
Blue Ocean Strategy

I'm always looking for suggestions too, so if you've read a book that you can't help but gush about, let's hear it and I'll add it to the list!