Over at A Year of Reading, Franki asks us to share our own reading goals.  Here are mine!

1. Read 36 books this year.  Last year, my goal was 26 - a book every two weeks.  This year, it's 3 a month.  That seems terribly slow to me, as Little Willow reads my yearly goal each month.  I justify it to myself by saying books are her business.  To be on target with this goal I need to read three or four books in the next week or so.  I am including complete graphic novels as books for my goal, and books of all genres and lengths.  This should make it more achievable.  I'm not including individual comic books or trade paperbacks that are collections.

2. Read the entire Xanth series in chronological order.  This is a goal at which I'm chipping away extremely slowly.  Piers Anthony is my favorite author.  I'm currently 29% of the way there, but Piers is a prolific man with intentions to keep expanding the series as long as he's writing.  I'd set reading his entire oeuvre as a goal but in several of his series, one generation replaces the prior as the main characters in a book, and I can't always sustain reading when that happens.  (cf. L'Engle)

3. Read books from the Cybils 2006 shortlist.  I'm not sure of the scope of this goal yet.  Originally I was just being choosy, reading the titles that interested me from their descriptions.  Then I expanded to reading all the Sci-Fi/Fantasy, the graphic novels, and the middle grades and YA fiction.  Now I'm thinking I may just go whole hog and read all the books on there.

4. Read books as market research for writing.  They always say you should read a lot before you write, so that's what I'm doing.  I've already learned a lot, so that's exciting.  This is the least measurable of my goals.

I'm considering adding more.  Perhaps reading all the Newberys.  It looks like a good time to set the goal of reading all the Geisels, doesn't it?

What are your reading goals?

Here on vacation, I don't devote quite the same energy to reading and writing blogs that I do at home, but I am still around.  Here's a list of upcoming content:

Reviews of
Millicent Min, Girl Genius, Lisa Yee
The Last Dragon, Silvana de Mari
Pucker, Melanie Gideon
A Brief Chapter in My Impossible Life, Dana Reinhardt 
Love in Shadow, Sonja Foust

Addressing Franki's post at A Year of Reading on reading goals

Answering HipWriterMama's question: "What would you do if you knew you could not fail?"

From “The Mermaid” by Alfred Lord Tennyson:

I would be a mermaid fair;
I would sing to myself the whole of the day;
With a comb of pearl I would comb my hair;
And still as I comb’d I would sing and say,
‘Who is it loves me? who loves not me?’
I would comb my hair till my ringlets would fall
                Low adown, low adown,
From under my starry sea-bud crown
                Low adown and around,
And I should look like a fountain of gold
        Springing alone
        With a shrill inner sound
                Over the throne
        In the midst of the hall;
Till that great sea-snake under the sea
From his coiled sleeps in the central deeps
Would slowly trail himself sevenfold
Round the hall where I sate, and look in at the gate
With his large calm eyes for the love of me.
And all the mermen under the sea
Would feel their immortality
Die in their hearts for the love of me.

To read the whole thing, go here.  You’ll also see my favorite of John William Waterhouse’s paintings, “A Mermaid."  I’m a mermaid, you know.

I am the sonnet, never quickly thrilled; Not prone to overstated gushing praise Nor yet to seething rants and anger, filled With overstretched opinions to rephrase; But on the other hand, not fond of fools, And thus, not fond of people, on the whole; And holding to the sound and useful rules, Not those that seek unjustified control. I'm balanced, measured, sensible (at least, I think I am, and usually I'm right); And when more ostentatious types have ceased, I'm still around, and doing, still, alright. In short, I'm calm and rational and stable - Or, well, I am, as much as I am able. What Poetry Form Are You?

I was originally terza rima, but after reading it decided it was slightly too extroverted for me.  This was the quiz's second assessment of me, and it suits me better.  Plus, sonnet is my favorite kind of poetry.

Here’s what I hope to pick up on my next trip to the library: 
The Silver Child, Cliff McNish - because its sequel was a Cybils nominee 
Kristy’s Great Idea: A Graphic Novel, Ann M. Martin - Cybils 
To Dance, Siena Siegel - Cybils 
American Born Chinese, Gene Yang - Cybils 
Castle Waiting, Linda Medley - Cybils 
Dramacon Vol 1, Svetlana Chmakova - Cybils 
La Perdida, Jessica Abel - Cybils 
A Drowned Maiden’s Hair: A Melodrama, Laura Amy Schlitz - Cybils 
Framed, Frank Cottrell Boyce - Cybils 
Heat, Mike Lupica - Cybils 
Weedflower [sound recording], Cynthia Kadohata - Cybils 
The Earth, My Butt, and Other Big, Round Things, Carolyn Mackler - readergirlz 
Aria of the Sea, Dia Calhoun - readergirlz 
Make Lemonade, Virginia Euwer Wolff

Last trip I got 7 books, this time I hope to get 14.  I do everything in multiples of 7.

Things to get eventually but not now, due to unavailability: 
Babymouse - All of them! But I have to read them in order. It’s an OCD type thing. I read BSC in order, for goodness’ sake. (Again because of the Cybils.) 
Kiki Strike: inside the shadow city, Kirsten Miller - Cybils

 Read in 2007:
1. Nothing But the Truth (and a few white lies), Justina Chen Headley
2. The Royal Diaries - Elizabeth I: The Red Rose of the House of Tudor, Kathryn Lasky
3. Millicent Min, Girl Genius, Lisa Yee
4. The Last Dragon, Silvana de Mari
5. Pucker, Melanie Gideon
6. A Brief Chapter in My Impossible Life, Dana Reinhardt 
7. Love in Shadow, Sonja Foust

Currently Reading:
1. Buffy the Vampire Slayer: The Gatekeeper Trilogy, Vol. 1: Out of the Madhouse, Christopher Golden and Nancy Holder
2. Virtual Mode, Piers Anthony
3. I, Claudius, Robert Graves

At this rate, I should be caught up to my 3-a-month goal by the end of Spring Break.  I can probably knock out Buffy the Vampire Slayer: Visitors tonight, and then I'll have Tithe for any other time I'm free.  I'll probably be too tired from being at Disney World over the next few days to do much reading, but I think most of Friday will involve lounging at my grandmother's house - one of my two favorite reading spots, if you'll recall.  The trip back will be a short plane ride as opposed to the longer drive down here, so I probably won't finish a whole book then.  Still, I'm on pace to take a library trip next week.

So here's my plans for upcoming reading:
Today - Read Visitors.
Next Several Days - Read Tithe.
When I Get Home - Read Peter Pan and On Pointe.
Then, visit the library.  I'm now building up a library list.  I'll post it later tonight.

A few years ago, my family and I took a trip to Roanoke Island and visited the Elizabeth II.  While browsing the gift shop I came upon Elizabeth I, Red Rose of the House of Tudor, England, 1544 (Royal Diaries) and fell in love immediately.  I love to read diaries, real or fictionalized, and I have a special affinity for stories of queens.  So I bought the book, thinking it would be one of the things I read to make the trip home pass more quickly.

Somehow, I didn’t read it then, and did not even pick it up until this year.  The book provides a unique look at what life may have been like for Elizabeth long before she was queen.  It’s easy for historical figures like Elizabeth to become so much larger than life that we forget they were real people, once.     Elizabeth I recreates the emotions and thoughts of an adolescent girl in a way that shows that even a princess feels the universal emotions of loneliness, fear, and doubt.

Elizabeth I addresses two themes especially well: a daughter’s longing for her father’s affection, and a keen political mind’s awareness of what it takes to be a successful ruler.  Despite the fact that he had her mother beheaded, Elizabeth still loves her father and lives for the moments when he shows her favor.  She is also an astute observer of the goings on in the world of royals and nobility, and early on comes to the realization that if she should become Queen, she must remain unmarried to retain her rule.

I would recommend this book to anyone who, like me, loves diaries and memoirs and takes an interest in the intricacies of queendom.

Book:  Elizabeth I, Red Rose of the House of Tudor, England, 1544 (Royal Diaries) (Affiliate Link) Author: Kathryn Lasky Publisher: Scholastic Original Publication Date: 1999 Pages: 240 Age Range: Middle Grades Source of Book: Purchased at Roanoke Island Festival Park Museum Shop

If you were a friend on my old MySpace account and got a new request from me, think nothing of it but do please add me again.  Sorry for the inconvenience; there were some privacy issues with my old account that could only be resolved by starting over completely.

The April issue of readergirlz is now online.  This month’s book is On Pointe (Affiliate Link) by Lorie Ann Grover, a verse novel about a ballet dancer who finds herself getting too tall for her passion.  As April is National Poetry Month, a verse novel is an especially appropriate choice.  My local library system has only one copy of On Pointe, and that copy is on hold for someone distinctly not me.  That’s good; it means it’s getting read!  None of the local bookstores have it, either; I just ordered it from Amazon, and expect to have it read by mid-month.

This month’s issue of readergirlz includes a playlist, community challenge, slideshow, party ideas, discussion questions, author interview, and recommended reads.  The first song on the playlist, “Video” (Affiliate Link) by India Arie, is one of my favorite songs in recent years.

For more books about dancers, take a look at Little Willow’s I Am a Dancer booklist.  To read about real-life dance experiences, read her article Dance Dreams.

Over at Jen Robinson's Book Page I found this meme:

Where do you do most of your reading? Your favorite spot?

I do most of my reading while in motion.  When I go for walks is when I read the most.  Otherwise, it’s a toss up between the couch and bed.  The couch on which I read is big, hideously mustard-colored, and comfy.  It’s one of those weird segmented couches, with a corner pieces, two pieces with only one side to them, and one piece with no side at all.  (When I say side I really mean arm, I guess.)  We’ve pushed these together to create a vaguely bed-shaped thing.  When I read in bed, I use the Bedrest Pillow my boyfriend discarded due to its non-working circuitry.  He got a new one and I got his old one.  It doesn’t have the massage/light/heat functionality, since it’s broken, but it does let me sit up in bed.

I can think of two favorite spots to read.  One is on my grandmother’s patio, in Florida.  When the weather is just right, around Christmastime, it’s a lovely 70ish degrees Fahrenheit and a breeze is blowing.  I sit and I read and no one disturbs me.  The other spot is the porch of my boyfriend’s family’s beach condo.  I’ve only been there twice, but my ritual was to wake up every morning and go sit on the porch and just read until he woke up.  The sound of the waves and the smell of saltwater serve as a perfect backdrop for a good book.