I calculated that this would mean reading 10 pages per day, as the 7-book Jane Austen collection I bought on Amazon had approximately 3000 pages (per the marketing material) and then I needed to read a few other pieces that weren’t included (mostly the unfinished stuff like Sanditon and The Watsons). A little ways in, however, I learned that this page count included a lot of opening material and notes for each book, which did not all need to be part of the project.

Net result: I finished reading everything Jane Austen wrote about a week ago, with about a quarter of the year left to go. Oh well!

I’m glad I did it. I like being familiar with this well-known cast of characters and stories. Pride and Prejudice and Sense and Sensibility felt the most compelling to me, and I imagine to lots of folks, which explains why they are her most widely read books (though I know Emma and Persuasion have their fans!). Especially in reading unfinished works like Sanditon and The Watsons, I could see Austen’s careful scene setting and character development. Parts of her early writings (bound together in the 7-book set in a collection called “Love and Friendship,” after one novella) were hilariously satirical. I enjoyed when some of that humor came back out in parts of Pride and Prejudice.

On the other hand…I didn’t really fall in love with Jane Austen’s books. I started this project truly hoping I would. I appreciate them, for sure, and how they show the limited (if changing) world her female main characters inhabited. I can understand, on an intellectual level, that the passive, quiet Fanny Price shows the challenge of trying to maintain your dignity and integrity in a world that gives you little control of your life. I can be grateful my world is different! But it was hard to stick with that passiveness for 450 pages. Elizabeth Bennet, of course, and Elinor Dashwood, to a degree, feel like more modern heroines. Still, the pace for the first 100-plus pages in many of the Austen books was challenging. That’s why I needed a project like this, where I read a little bit each day, so I didn’t give up. That way I could appreciate some dialogue, or a description, for the craft and for what they were, rather than wondering where this was going.

Anyway, I’m going to re-read a few Shakespeare plays over the next few months, before I start 2024’s project, which I think will be a little different — listening to all of Bach’s music. (I might re-read P&P too.)

In the meantime, if you have a favorite Jane Austen book, let me know which one and why! (Maybe someone’s is Lady Susan, who knows…) And if you have read all of them (or all but one or two) I’d love to hear about that as well.

In other news: This week’s Before Breakfast podcast will be sharing a few of my favorite non-fiction writing tips. Today’s is to ask “Do you come out for it or against it?” Please give it a listen, and then look for the next four tips over the next four days.

In other other news: Last week I went to Portland, Maine for business and then to Boston to meet up with SHU. I did decide to drive, as I’d mentioned a few months ago. The drive to Portland on Tuesday was…long. I mean, it’s long anyway, though theoretically with no traffic it can be 6.5-7 hours. But I got stuck behind a bad crash on the Tappan Zee/Cuomo bridge (which I’d taken, ironically enough, to avoid some jam-ups around the George Washington bridge…). There was nothing to do about it, as by the time it happened I was in the approach to the bridge and so I was there for an hour or so. I had some lovely runs along the water in Portland in the mornings, and then it was fun to be in Boston for a bit too. Sarah and I ran along the Charles and enjoyed a beer at a chilly outdoor beer garden. Fall is definitely here in New England! The drive home Saturday was relatively swift except for the torrential rain. But there’s a reasonable chance that would have delayed a flight too, so hard to know.

Last night we hosted a small crowd of 8th graders for my second child’s 14th birthday. These young men were all nice enough — the most challenging part was keeping the 3-year-old (and to some degree the 8-year-old) out of their hair. The little guy kept trying to go play with them!

It is…not the most readable Austen book. Fanny is blushing and quiet— unlike Elinor Dashwood or Lizzie Bennet. Mansfield Park moves very slowly along for 440 pages. No one else is particularly likable and Fanny doesn’t really draw the reader in based on her own personality. Fanny will be vindicated, of course, but 380 pages in I’m just barely starting to feel the momentum to the end.

So, it’s been a project. But this is why I have adopted the practice of reading precisely 10 pages per day toward my goal of reading through all the works of Jane Austen this year. Ten pages doesn’t take that long. Because it’s such a small daily requirement, I actually read the ten pages, rather than flipping through to see if something more interesting is coming up. I feel a certain patience with the whole process, because I know that if I stick with it, I will be done. I know the day I will be done! (Well, the outside possibility of the day I will be done. If I’m 20 pages from the end I suspect I might just keep going.)

This sense of steady forward progress was helpful when I was mired in the middle. At 280 pages, I had been reading Mansfield Park for four weeks. And I still had 160 more pages — that is, 16 more days — to go. But 16 days isn’t an eternity, and eventually we will be on the other side of those days. And because I stick with this project, I will be done with the book.

I’m all for abandoning books one doesn’t like, but that isn’t the point of my year-long reading project. Instead, I do think it’s good to practice patience with important books, and the commitment to reading just a little bit every day really does help with that. I think if I’d just thought “hey, I should read Mansfield Park!” I would have quit a long time ago (possibly 37 days ago). But the slow steady pace is doable. So I do it. And I will make it through.

In other news: My 3-year-old is at the stage where we are having some crazy conversations. In the car the other day he asked me “what’s the biggest number?” So I told him “infinity.” He said “No, 100,” which — to be fair — is likely the biggest number on his counting chart at preschool. So I said, “well, what about 101?” He screamed “NO I WANT IT TO BE 100!” So there you go. Math with a toddler! This was followed slightly later by “Mom, when are you going to die?”

So this year I just hauled out all the books in early November. I read stories with the 2-year-old every night, and many nights I read with the 7-year-old and the 11-year-old (whose literary tastes are more sophisticated, but she is very into Christmas!). Here’s what’s going over well with them and (crucially) me, since there is a lot of re-reading going on.

First, let’s talk about the Grinch. The 2-year-old requests this just about every night. Dr. Seuss’s The Grinch Who Stole Christmas is a classic for a reason — perfect for read-alouds. I’m tired of it, but not quite as tired as I would be if he’d become obsessed with something else. Other current favorites include Construction Site on Christmas Night and Merry Christmas Daniel Tiger (the lift-the-flap book). He has also enjoyed How to Catch Santa and Little Blue Truck’s Christmas (a board book whose last page lights up!)

The older kids are a bit more into the stories. We always enjoy Christmas Farm, with its tale of Parker and Wilma planting dozens of Christmas tree seedlings on the back hill, seeing some lost every winter to moose and mice, but still managing to sell hundreds to neighbors near and far. In keeping with the agrarian theme, we’ve also enjoyed Apple Tree Christmas, about a family living somewhere blizzard-prone, whose favorite apple tree takes on a new life after a terrible storm. I like Pearl S. Buck’s Christmas Day in the Morning (yes, she wrote a children’s book), though my children, who complain about emptying the dishwasher, were stretching to fathom waking up at 4 a.m. every day to do the milking.

Those books are all wholesome, but sometimes you’re in the mood for a book about tricking someone or something bad. Cranberry Christmas is always fun, with Mr. Whiskers helping thwart a villain so the children of Cranberryport can ice skate on their pond again. I don’t really think much about seaside towns in winter, but of course they continue to exist, and so I always like the images of shell ornaments and frozen bogs. Then there’s Who’s That Knocking on Christmas Eve, which is Jan Brett’s beautifully-illustrated tale of a boy from Finnmark, a cozy cottage, an “ice bear” (isbjorn!), and naughty trolls who learn their lesson about messing with one.

If you’re into far northern scenery, A Christmas Wish, by Lori Evert, has beautiful photography, though the story is a little meh. Same with The Wild Christmas Reindeer (also a Jan Brett one). The little Advent calendar running along the borders is fantastic, but the story is just OK. We look at it for the illustrations.

Another book with excellent illustrations and a good story: The Polar Express! We’ve been into this because we’ve seen so many trains this year…

I’ll recommend two books I’d put in the “learning to be Santa” category. One, The Night Before the Night Before Christmas, by Richard Scarry, is a fun story (with classic Richard Scarry illustrations) about what happens when Santa gets mixed up, and Mr. Frumble has to deliver all the presents instead. Then — a lesser known one — I’d recommend How Santa Got His Job. Santa as a young man tried all sorts of careers, from chimney sweep to delivering packages to zoo keeper, getting discouraged at all of them, before he found his true calling.

I do like the story of The Year of the Perfect Christmas Tree, about an Appalachian family during the final year of World War I, but it tends to make me cry, so I don’t like reading it out loud. If you are into that sort of thing though, you might like it.

A book that makes us laugh: 5 More Sleeps Til Christmas, by Jimmy Fallon. A little boy keeps insisting he can’t sleep because he’s so excited, but the illustrations show a different story. I like a good children’s book where the pictures are part of the gag.

Finally, some Christmas tree tales: we like the whimsy of Mr. Willowby’s Christmas Tree, where each successive family lops the top off a too-tall tree to pass it along, and we like Pick a Pine Tree, which is a hushed and lovely rhyme about hanging the ornaments and bows. I also like Night Tree, about a family headed off into the woods to decorate a tree (in place) in the cold night, though my kids weren’t quite as enthusiastic about that as, say, The Grinch.

We’re always looking for more stories, so feel free to share your favorites here!

In 2021, I read through War and Peace one chapter at a time. Tolstoy’s chapters are very short…he just wrote 361 of them. And, sure enough, when you read one chapter a day, you finish on December 27th! That truth still feels slightly magical as I think about it. When you move at a steady pace, and just keep going, you do in fact reach the end goal.

In 2022, I’ve been reading through all the works of Shakespeare. My illustrated Shakespeare anthology is 1024 pages long, meaning that I only need to read three pages per day to keep up the pace. The font is kind of small, but it’s still quite doable in less than 15 minutes a day. Even with some of his less-great stuff, this doesn’t inspire too much resistance.

It’s been a good reading experience. I mean, obviously, it’s Shakespeare. But I’m even enjoying just the random Shakespeare references that come at coincidental times. I read Henry IV part 1, which is where the phrase “the game is afoot” comes from — and I was also, at the same time, reading This is Not A Book About Benedict Cumberbatch, where the author is obsessed with the actor who plays Sherlock Holmes in the Netflix series…and she throws in a line at some point about the game being afoot, because Sherlock Holmes always says that, and I’m like…hey!

Looking at the calendar, I see that it is…mid-October. Which means that I will, in fact, have read all the works of Shakespeare in a little over two months. So…what should I read next?

I don’t have to choose one work or one author to read over the year, but I like this steady pace of small steps, and I like the sense of completion that comes from finishing something big. I also know, after two years, that I can do it, and the idea of such a challenge feels intriguing.

I am not opposed to re-reading something, but it would have to be the right thing. (In terms of “big” books, I have read Ulysses (and The Odyssey!), Middlemarch, Anna Karenina, Moby Dick, 1Q84, and Infinite Jest…I’m not sure I truly want to spend a year re-reading any of those. I have read about 90 percent of the Bible but I don’t know that I’d want to read it straight through…and not hit the New Testament until fall.)

I could read an author’s entire works…or I could read an anthology of something (poetry?). Anyway, I welcome suggestions! I’m pretty good at sticking with something once I start it (hello, Upholder) so that makes me want to be sure I choose the right thing.

In other news: Tranquility by Tuesday launched yesterday! I’ve loved seeing people’s pictures of their copies. If you haven’t bought a copy, would you please do so? If you have, I hope you love it — and if you do, would you please post a review wherever you ordered it? I’d love to get some more reviews up at the major retailers. Thanks!

A lot of great publicity yesterday! I’ll keep adding to this list this week.

An excerpt ran at Fast Company about escaping the 24 hour trap.

I was on Hilary Sutton’s Hustle & Grace podcast — always a great conversation with her, in this case talking about practical tips for a satisfying week.

I was on the Passion Struck podcast with John Miles, talking all things passion and tranquility, and on A Mindful Moment with Teresa McKee and on Tilt Parenting, a show about raising differently wired kids hosted by Debbie Reber. I’ll send these links out in my emails later this week too!  A few others but I am trying to spread the links out!

I’ve been following someone else’s reading project that they did in 2020, and I can say, almost halfway through, that it’s been very manageable. Each play gets 5-6 days or so, but there is a buffer in between each work, and the person who created the calendar left off major holidays in 2020, so there is even more space built in. So I normally read 3-4 pages a day in my book of Shakespeare’s complete works, but if I read a little less, it’s OK. I take at least a day to read a plot summary in between each work so I know what I’m getting into. If it’s inconvenient to read my large Shakespeare book (e.g. I’m traveling) I read that chunk online.

I have not always loved it. Like any working artist who needed to get the next thing out there, Shakespeare was not nailing it every single time. (I do enjoy the commentaries that claim any of the not good stuff must not be Shakespeare…I recognize that he collaborated with people but still…can’t we imagine that sometimes he just needed to crank something out?). It’s also interesting to see, as I read through everything, how he re-used plot points and the known crowd-pleasing stuff.

But it’s also really cool to read the great works, and read some of the lesser-read works too. I just finished and actually enjoyed Pericles (incidentally, one of the works that people think Shakespeare didn’t completely write) and I probably never would have read it without my goal to read some Shakespeare every morning and to read through everything. So I’m glad I made this resolution. Now I just need to figure out what next year’s project will be! Any ideas?

So I want to help you with that. Over the next month, I’m giving away copies of my previous time management titles: 168 Hours, What the Most Successful People Do Before Breakfast, I Know How She Does It, Off the Clock, and Juliet’s School of Possibilities.

To enter, leave a comment here answering this question: If an hour opened up on a Tuesday afternoon, what would you do?

Six winners will be randomly selected from entries (winners can choose which title they’d like).

The giveaway closes Friday, May 13th at noon EST. I’ll contact the winners no later than May 26th to get mailing details and ask which book each winner would like (and if they’d like the books inscribed to somebody). The giveaway is open to continental US readers only. Thanks for entering!

So…onto the next read perhaps. I’ve been re-reading The 7 Habits of Highly Effective People, though that’s on paper and I need something on my Kindle app to read in those little chunks of time, or when I’m sitting in the dark (putting the toddler to bed). I’d also like to find a novel since I prefer to have a mix going.

I never feel good about abandoning a book, or even putting aside a book for a while, especially when I know it’s a very good book. I just also know that if I’m not feeling like I want to read a book — and certain themes can do that to me — then I won’t be particularly motivated to pick it up. And if I’m not motivated to pick it up, I won’t make progress, and time has an opportunity cost. I could be using that time to read through something else that I’m in a better head space for.

If I live for 50 more years and read 50 books a year, that’s 2500 books. That is a small enough number as it is. I wouldn’t want that number to be even smaller because I tried to soldier through a book that I wasn’t feeling motivated to read.

Have you abandoned, or at least put aside, any books recently?

In other reading news: I’m currently reading Richard II (no, not Richard III – I already read that one) in my Shakespeare reading project. It’s not really one of Shakespeare’s most memorable, but I did find myself nodding in recognition to those lines I read this morning about “This happy breed of men, this little world, this precious stone set in the silver sea…” which culminates in Gaunt’s tribute to “This blessed plot, this earth, this realm, this England.” I remember this well from some airline commercial decades ago. I don’t remember which airline, but it did make me want to fly to London!

Photo: We are always choosing how to spend our time. As the bracelet says, “Choose well.”

It is now December 27th, which is 361 days later. And sure enough, I am finished.

I suppose this seems straightforward enough, but any long journey can seem overwhelming. Not so much at the beginning. We all know the saying that a journey of a thousand miles begins with a single step, and yet you have lots of energy and enthusiasm for that first step. It’s the steps at miles 46, and 75, and 126, and so forth, that seem harder.

But when there is a plan, and the plan is straightforward, and you stick with the plan, then eventually you will finish. Reading one 3-4 page chapter per day was always doable. This pace allowed me to get to know and care about the characters in this sweeping saga of Russia during the Napoleonic wars. There is a reason War and Peace is considered one of the world’s best novels.

Now I will take a few days off, and then start my next reading project on January 1st! I’m looking at reading all the works of Shakespeare. The path isn’t quite as straightforward (Shakespeare didn’t divide his work into 361 bite-sized pieces…) but I have a calendar that involves reading about the same amount, roughly 3 pages in the collection per day.

So here’s hoping that in late December of next year I’ll be finished with that. Life is, in many ways, unknowable. But there’s a reasonable chance that 2022 will happen, and that 2022 will have 365 days, and that I will be around for them, and capable of reading a little bit here and there. Since those things are likely to happen, I could end the year not having read all the works of Shakespeare, or I could end the year having done so. I’d like to aim for the latter.

I replied that it was probably a realization that we’re only going to read so many books in life. If you read 50 books a year — a high tally! — and you live for 50 more years — an optimistic guess for those of us in middle age — that is only 2500 books. That is it.

If you’re only going to read 2500 more books (or fewer!) then you want to be sure that any given book is worth including in that canon. However, you can’t be sure when you start a book if it’s going to be great. Hence the wisdom of abandoning books. If something just isn’t working for you, you want to let it go, so you can try something else that might be worth including in your life list.

I read a lot of books on the Kindle app on my phone; it’s easier than holding a book while nursing a squirmy toddler, which tends to be a big chunk of my reading time. So lately I’ve been employing the “Send a free sample” button a lot. I get about 20 pages, and can decide if I want to continue. Often I do. But sometimes I don’t. Which is just as well. You can build a rich reading life by trying broadly, but abandoning liberally. For something to make it on the 2500 book list, it should be good.

How many books do you read per year? I’ll have a low tally this year, but that’s partly because of my one-chapter-a-day reading of War and Peace.

Photo: The “Local Bookstore” 1000-piece puzzle from White Mountain. 

In any case, we’ve been working through our collection of Christmas books. Over the years, we’ll try new titles, and see what sticks and what is forgettable. Here’s what’s keeping the attention of a very high-energy 5-year-old boy right now (well, in addition to the classics like How the Grinch Stole Christmas, The Polar Express, and Elf on the Shelf, but you already know about those!)

5 More Sleeps ’til Christmas, by Jimmy Fallon, illustrated by Rich Deas. Yes, this is a celebrity children’s book, which is often a terrible genre (Freckleface Strawberry excepted!) but Fallon’s comedic timing is great. The first time we read it through, my kid was roaring at the recurring visual gag, and now that he knows what’s coming, he still likes the idea of counting sleeps until Christmas. He has made it known that starting on December 20th, we will have to read this book every night, and note where we are within the 5-sleep rubric.

Christmas Farm, by Mary Lyn Ray, illustrated by Barry Root. Wilma and her young neighbor Parker plant many dozens of Christmas tree seedlings on their back hill. Over five years, Parker grows and the trees do too, dodging moose, mice, and weather, until they are ready to be sold. We read this year after year, and enjoy thinking of how evergreen trees grow through many summers until they are ready to brighten our homes at the darkest time of year.

How Santa Got His Job, by Stephen Kerensky, illustrated by S. D. Schindler. Before his current gig delivering presents, Santa went through a long series of career pivots. Chimney sweep, delivery man, zoo keeper, circus performer — like many of us, Santa had to figure out his strengths as he went along. This one is fun as kids see how Santa is getting closer to being the red-suited, reindeer-driving character we know and love.

Who’s That Knocking on Christmas Eve? written and illustrated by Jan Brett. Far up in northern Scandinavia, Kyri and her father are plagued by trolls who keep stealing their Christmas feast. But then one year, a boy and his pet ice bear stop by on the way to Oslo, and the trolls experience a turnabout they are not soon to forget! Jan Brett does wonderful illustrations and has many Christmas books (The Wild Christmas Reindeer, Home for Christmas) but this is the one we choose to re-read because it’s less pedantic than the others. Also, I suspect my 5-year-old identifies with the naughty trolls.

The Night Before the Night Before Christmas, written and illustrated by Richard Scarry. Mr. Frumble wants to be helpful. But when he rides his ski-pickle-do up to Santa Bear’s workshop, he sets off a series of unfortunate events that has Santa Bear taking off to deliver presents on the wrong night. Hopefully Mr. Frumble will be able to solve the problem! There are always a great many things to see in Richard Scarry books, which helps this book stand the test of time.

Pick a Pine Tree, by Patricia Toht, illustrated by Jarvis. This deceptively simple rhyming book has us smiling in delight when we see the final result of all that ornament hanging. I would add that Little Blue Truck’s Christmas, by Alice Schertle, illustrated by Jill McElmurry, has a similar gasp on the last page of this board book with the blinking lit-up tree.

Bear Stays Up For Christmas, by Karma Wilson, illustrated by Jane Chapman. Kids who learn about hibernation might wonder if animals sleep through Christmas. Well, not this year! Bear’s friends are determined to help him stay up, though in his busyness of making presents, he still doesn’t see Santa stop by. With its focus on sleep, this one is particularly appealing to a kid headed toward bedtime.

I’d love suggestions of other holiday books that have been big hits in your house! I’d add that while I appreciate some more tear-jerker titles such as The Year of the Perfect Christmas Tree, and The Christmas Miracle of Jonathan Toomey, I just can’t handle this in my end-of-the-day-exhausted state right now.

Photo: Our elf, Sassy, who wore a mask for the first week she (or possibly he?) was here.