80 book update - two months to go!

60 book update! Well, I've bumped it up to 80 books in 2010. Here are the books from October:

65. The Ghost Map, Steven Johnson
66. Benjamin Franklin, Walter Isaacson
67. Salvation City, Sigrid Nunez
68. The Girl Who Played With Fire, Stieg Larsson
69. Dirty Sexy Politics, Meghan McCain
70. Every Last One, Anna Quindlen
71. Heat Wave, Richard Castle
72. Between Two Worlds, Roxana Saberi
73. Work Hard. Be Nice, Jay Mathews
74. Sex at Dawn, Christopher Ryan, Cacilda Jetha

I really liked The Ghost Map; it's a great nonfiction book about epidemiology and cholera. Makes those stories about cholera in Haiti seem even more pointless - we know how cholera spreads and how to survive it. The only reason people are dying is because of poverty. Plain and simple.

Also liked the Stieg Larsson books. I'm waiting on the last one... hopefully soon! I'm near the top on the waiting list. Every Last One was surprisingly good, also.

I actually really like the majority of the books I read last month. I won't say which one I liked the least because that would be singling it out. It'd be a hard pick; I really like most of them and was indifferent bordering on slight liking for the rest.

So I adjusted my goal from 60 books in 2010 to 80 (I hit 60 on August 31, fyi). I think I'm going to have to adjust it again, just to keep it realistic. I'm already halfway done with book 75, The Immortal Life of Henrietta Lacks.

Or is it tracking now? Am I not motivated by a goal, but has the goal helped form a year-long habit? I mean, I've always been a big reader, but each year I read a little more than the year before. 2007 - 47; 2008 - 53; 2009 - 63; 2010 - upwards of 75. I'd say not being a student, riding the bus, and close proximity to a library have all contributed to this being a banner year in the 50 book challenge.

If only I had this kind of foresight and discipline in all my other goal setting...