And if you see the movie without reading the book? You just nullified the next book you read. Hey, it ain't all hilarity & hijinks around here, pal

So last year (the one that just ended) I signed on to the 50 Book Challenge. I eventually stopped keeping track of the books I was reading because I started feeling like a pretentious cluck about it, what with listing everything on my blog's sidebar. Heaven knows, the last thing a blogger wants to come off as is like they're all like "Hey hey hey look at me!" (...) Erm...so I don't know the exact number of books I read in 2005. I know I crossed the 50 book line. I don't believe I hit 60. Of course, some of the books I read were long. Real long. And hard. And named Ulysses. So, I guess you can pardon me for still declaring myself ridiculously awesome.

Now I'm thinking I'll probably resurrect the list and update it as best I can, then get the final number before storing the list somewhere on this site, because I've stopped feeling pretentious about it. Instead I just feel really geeky about it, which is obviously completely okay, if not witheringly charming and deftly attractive on my part. But more importantly, I missed being able to execute my full book-completion ritual: adding the book's title and some random related links to the list on my blog, slapping the book down on the growing finished books pile, bellowing and thumping my fists against my chest and scaring everyone in my apartment building before carrying Naomi Watts to the airy, scenic top of my To Be Read pile to make out for a couple hours before falling back down to my inevitable yet sad death, grabbing my next book out of the stack on my way down to cushion the fall. Without adding the book to the list on the blog, swatting at airplanes just wasn't as much fun.

Naomi Watts, however, remained ridiculously awesome. Every single time.

Anyways, it's 2006 now and that means a new challenge, and Edward Champion is out to pump us up. Or to make us all look bad. I'm not sure. 75 books instead of 50? Well, sure, now, I guess that's possible. As I mention in the comments over there, I think some alternate math will help. Let me update and add to those numbers here:

• Bleak House, I'll say, now that I can see it weighing down the shelf across the room, is totally worth, like, four books, maybe five if back injury is sustained while carrying that brick. Seriously, was that guy paid by the word or something?


• Don Quixote remains worth two books. Mostly because I don't own it so I haven't picked it up in a while. I reserve the right to make it worth more books later, when I do buy it, and I yank my shoulder out of its socket in the process.


• The William T. Vollmann's oeuvre in one month idea was a stupid idea and should be disregarded. Seriously, is that guy paid by the word or something? Do you realize the guy has written more books than you have hours in the day? Hint: many.


• Reading a work in translation? That counts as two, because really, you're reading two books, the book as book and the book as translation.


• I think re-reading a book that you read once long ago should also count twice; the old read carrying through in the form of the new read.


• Literary genre books? Those uppity ghettoized books that dare to use genre conventions toward literary ends? Yup: you can count one book per genre. (I think that makes Dhalgren worth about eight.)


• If you've ever read Infinite Jest, you can double your total at the end of the year. Cuz, of, like, footnotes, or something. (Doubling takes place after the multiple-read factor is taken into account. So, like, this is the perfect time to read Infinite Jest for the tenth time, because that one read? Totally counts for twenty. We're having a fire!!!!!! sale.)


• People who leave multiple comments on my blog will be automatically placed into a raffle; at the end of the year, one lucky commenter will be awarded ten free bonus reads!


• If you read Jeff Noon's three vurt books (Vurt, Pollen, and Nymphomation), and Jeff Noon's Falling Out of Cars, you automatically win. Because I say so.


• Bought the book in hardcover? Bought yourself an extra book point, you awsome person you!

I reserve the right to make up more crappy rules along the way. Like, David Foster Wallace announcing the forthcoming publication of a new novel isn't actually worth anything to your books read total, but you should do a shot of fine vodka (or two shots of the other type of liquor of your choice), as part of the drinking game I just made up, which only has one rule so far, but which I think is the best drinking game rule ever.

Oh and to make things interesting: if M. Night Shyamalan releases a movie this year? Everyone gets docked six books. Because, you know what? Fuck that guy.