Watch Less, Read More

I've realized lately that the majority of my day is spent staring at a screen. I'm either staring at the computer doing work, watching TV, checking my email on my blackberry, or updating this lovely blog. I even watch TV when I'm working out at the gym. I can't really cut down on my screen time at work, as it's kind of imperative to my job. But I can make more of an effort to reduce my TV watching time. So I'm going to start reading actual books in my spare time.

And for the record, I'm split on my thoughts about the Kindle/digital books. One the one hand they save on paper - i.e. are Green. I love trying to be more green. (You should see my overflowing recycling container each week.) But on the other hand, I feel like screens are starting to invade life (see previous paragraph) and I like actual books. I think I'll stick with the paper versions. I'll do my part by going to the library. That counts as recycling right? Or maybe it fits more in the "reuse" part of reduce-reuse-recyle. It fits in the trifecta somehow.

So, I'm embarking on a journey. I found a list of books that "everyone should read before they turn 30" on the internet (you really can find anything online these days). I have 17 months before I turn 30, and am going to read all these books before then. I've marked the books I've already read - my grand total: 3. So I'm going to have to average almost two books per month. I think I can do it. I'll give you all a book report as I read them....Anyone want to join my journey?

The List (courtesy of the Mark and Angel Hack Life Blog...I have no clue what this is, or who Mark and Angel are. Perhaps I should've done some more reserach into the makers of the list before letting them blindly lead me on a book reading extraveganza, but I like to live on the wild side):

1. Siddhartha by Hermann Hesse (x)
2. 1984 by George Orwell
3. To Kill a Mockingbird by Harper Lee.
4. A Clockwork Orange by Anthony Burgess
5. For Whom the Bell Tolls by Ernest Hemingway
6. War and Peace by Leo Tolstoy
7. The Rights of Man by Tom Paine
8. The Social Contract by Jean-Jacques Rousseau
9. One Hundred Years of Solitude by Gabriel García Márquez
10. The Origin of Species by Charles Darwin
11. The Wisdom of the Desert by Thomas Merton.
12. The Tipping Point by Malcolm Gladwell
13. The Wind in the Willows by Kenneth Graham
14. The Art of War by Sun Tzu
15. The Lord of the Rings by J.R.R. Tolkien
16. David Copperfield by Charles Dickens
17. Four Quartets by T.S. Elliot
18. Catch-22 by Joseph Heller
19. The Great Gatsby by F. Scott Fitzgerald (x)
20. The Catcher in the Rye by J.D. Salinger (x)
21. Crime and Punishment by Fyodor Dostoyevsky
22. The Prince by Niccolo Machiavelli
23. Walden by Henry David Thoreau
24. The Republic by Plato
25. Lolita.
26. Getting Things Done by David Allen .
27. How To Win Friends and Influence People by Dale Carnegie.
28. Lord of the Flies by William Golding
29. The Grapes of Wrath by John Steinbeck
30. The Master and Margarita by Mikhail Bulgakov
31. BONUS: How To Cook Everything by Mark Bittman
32. BONUS: Honeymoon with My Brother by Franz Wisner


**For the record, Mr. Cob has read 15 of these books. As you can see I have read 3. Sigh. I hope our kids get his brain and memory. But hopefully they'll get my style. Did I mention he used to have less than stellar style until I showed him the way? I'm just sayin.