Thursday 17 February 2011

A new system

I've been thinking: I need a better system for selecting books, and the pedant in me has come up with a foolproof system which will still stay true to the original aims of this project. This was to read my 111 acquired books before buying any new ones.

It's obvious to me now that I have at least partially failed: I now have way over 111 books. Realistically, I'll probably end up with more before I come anywhere NEAR to finishing the books I already have. But I'm okay with that. This will be my system, similar to the goldfish bowl approach I considered last week:

This is Box A. Box A will always contain 111 bits of paper with the titles of 111 different books written on them. Once I have finished reading a book, I will select a new piece of paper from the handy hole in the top of the box, and that will be the next book I read.



This is Box B. Box B will contain the names of all the pesky extra books I accumulate over the course of this project, which will more than likely be lifelong. I will add new books to this box as and when I need to. Now here's the clever part: once I have selected a new book from Box A, the number will be down to a lame 110. Therefore, I will select a new title from Box B and add it to Box A.



So clever. And I also managed to waste quite a bit of time decorating my two boxes, specially for selection purposes.

I guess this is the fairest way to do it, to give myself a chance to both get through my old books and to give the new ones a chance, too. Realistically, I'll have to allow myself a veto every now and again. I don't want to start reading books without slightly looking forward to reading them.

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