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Okay, I admit it, the biggest draw of this challenge was the snark.

That’s not generally a quality that draws me in.

But something about the combo of the badge and the attitude hit me just the right way on a wintry morning.

I was hooked on the idea of the Insatiable Booksluts’ End of the World Reading Challenge.

And what does 2012 Reading mean to me? Well, a lot of what I loved about last year’s reading.

That is to say, some re-reads*, some short stories, some non-fiction (last year was the first year in which I consciously read in this vein, and not just bookish books, which are always easy for me to read, to gobble up like truffles), and lots of Canadian literature.

[*Yes, I realize re-reads don’t count for this challenge, though I really do think that if you’re re-reading something that you first read 20 years ago, it should count as a fresh read. I think that rule is invented by readers who haven’t been reading for all that many years overall and are thinking of something else entirely than I’m thinking of with re-reading.]

I also managed to move ahead in a few series (because I have loyalty issues in this regard, and I am constantly starting new series without finishing series that I’ve already started) and I want to keep on with that trend.

But for this year, I also want to make a point of reading in some particular themes. One of which I intended to read in last year, but it got overlooked. That’s books about wildlife and animals. I used to read a lot of those, and somehow they’ve fallen by the reading wayside.

And another reading habit lost, in recent years? Speculative fiction (see this challenge, too) and mythology and fairy tales (see this annual event, as well).

That’s what 2012’s reading will be all about: more of what I love and more of what I used to love and likely still do love.

There is a Goodreads Group for The Insatiable Booksluts, but I will also track my page count below.

Counted here are ONLY– according to my own rule, not to the group’s rules — books that live on my own shelves:

January
257 – 1. Cathleen Schine’s The Love Letter (1995)
327 – 2. Alice Sebold’s The Lovely Bones (2002)
357 – 3. Gail Carriger’s Soulless (2009)
265 – 4. Z.Z. Packer’s Drinking Coffee Elsewhere (2003)
298 – 5. Manda Scott’s Hen’s Teeth (1996)
427 – 6. Maria Tatar’s The Annotated Classic Fairy Tales (2002)
—–
1,931 – JANUARY TOTAL PAGES

February
242 – 7. William Loren Katz’s Black Indians (2012)
168 – 8. John Michael Cummings’ Ugly to Start With (2011)
128 – 9. Sinead de Valery’s Irish Fairy Tales (1973)
—-
2,469 (INCLUDING 538 FEBRUARY TOTAL PAGES)

March
238 – 10. Peggy Orenstein’s Cinderella Ate My Daughter (2011)
207 – 11. Kate Wilhelm’s Where Late the Sweet Birds Sang (1976)
215 – 12. Mary Lavin’s In the Middle of the Fields (1967)
272 – 13. Rachel Lloyd’s Girls Like Us (2011)
388 – 14. Eowyn Ivey’s The Snow Child (2012)
189 – 15 Sterling North’s Rascal (1963)
293 – 16. Grace McCleen’s The Land of Decoration (2012)
340 – 17. Ian Hamilton’s The Wild Beasts of Wuhan (2012)
252 – 18. Kergan Edwards-Stout Songs for the Great Depression (2011)
—-
4,863 (INCLUDING 2,394 MARCH TOTAL PAGES)

April
280 – 19. Pamela Porter’s I’ll Be Watching (2011)
374 – 20. Homer’s The Odyssey (OLD)
367 – 21. Catherine Asaro’s Ascendant Sun (2000)
337 – 22. Katie Ward’s Girl Reading (2012)
176 – 23. Elizabeth Taylor’s A Wreath of Roses (1949)
122 – 24. Colette’s Ripening Seed (1923)
116 – 25. Elizabeth Jolley’s The Newspaper of Claremont Street (1981)
292 – 26. Alex Adams’ White Horse (2012)
352 – 27. Ai Mi’s Under the Hawthorn Tree (2012)
192 – 28. Dorothy L. Sayers’ Strong Poison (1930)
—-
7,471 (INCLUDING 2,608 APRIL TOTAL PAGES)

May
260 – 29. Elizabeth Taylor’s A Game of Hide and Seek (1958)
504 – 30. Jane Harris’ Gillespie and I (2011)
375 – 31. Rick Riordan’s The Lightning Thief (2005)
224 – 32. Megan Mayhew Bergman’s Birds of a Lesser Paradise (2012)
414 – 33. Robert Hough’s Dr. Brinkley’s Tower (2012)
403 – 34. Nicola Beauman’s The Other Elizabeth Taylor (2009)
416 – 35. D.H. Lawrence’s Sons and Lovers (1913)
175 – 36. Cameron Dokey’s The World Above (2010)
—-
10,242 (INCLUDING 2,771 MAY TOTAL PAGES)

June
459 – 37. Charles de Lint’s Dreams Underfoot (1993)
222 – 38. Audrey Thomas’ The Wild Blue Yonder (1990)
331 – 39. Holly Black’s Tithe (2002)
324 – 40. Carrie Snyder’s The Juliet Stories (2012)
807 – 41. G.R.R. Martin’s A Game of Thrones (1996)
288 – 42. Maureen Jennings’ Under the Dragon’s Tail (1998)
—
12,673 (INCLUDING 2,431 JUNE TOTAL PAGES)

July
416 –   43. Brian Jacques’ Redwall (1986)
1144 – 44. Sigrid Undset’s Kristin Lavransdatter (1920, 1921, 1922)
487  –  45. Lawrence Hill’s The Book of Negroes (2007)
366   – 46. Khanh Ha’s Flesh (2012)
322   – 47. Jyotsna Sreenivasan’s And Laughter Fell From the Sky (2012)
—
15,408 (INCLUDING 2,735 JULY TOTAL PAGES)

August
280 – 52. Elizabeth Crane’s We Only Knew So Much (2012)
223 – 53. Lucy Wood’s Diving Belles (2012)
209 – 54. Harriet Lane’s Alys, Always (2012)
—
16,120 (INCLUDING 712 AUGUST TOTAL PAGES)

September
320 – 55. Meg Mitchell Moore’s The Arrivals (2011)
317 – 56. Meg Mitchell Moore’s So Far Away (2012)
255 – 60. Rosemary Nixon’s Kalila (2011)
200 – 61. Patrick Somerville’s The Cradle (2009)
258 – 64. Alix Ohlin’s Inside (2012)
—
17,470 (INCLUDING 1,350 SEPTEMBER TOTAL PAGES)

October
484 – 71. Pasha Malla’s People Park (2012)
236 – 78. Arley McNeney’s The Time We All Went Marching (2011)
—
18,190 (INCLUDING 720 OCTOBER TOTAL PAGES)

November
289 – 79. Rawi Hage’s Carnival (2012)
274 – 80. Donna B. Pincus’ Growing Up Brave (2012)
343 – 81. M.L Stedman’s The Light Between Oceans (2012)
226 – 82. Marilyn Wedge’s Pills Are Not For Preschoolers (2011)
228 – 83. Marie-Renee Lavoie’s Mister Roger and Me (2010; 2012 Trans. Wayne Grady)
359 – 84. Liza Klaussmann’s Tigers in Red Weather (2012)
334 – 85. Vaddey Ratner’s In the Shadow of the Banyan (2012)
288 – 86. Susannah Cahalan’s Brain on Fire (2012)
301 – 87. Alanda Greene’s Napi’s Dance (2012)
307 – 88. Corey Redekop’s Husk (2012)
374 – 89. Jo Nesbo’s The Bat (1997; 2012 Trans. Don Bartlett)
354 – 90. Linda Svendsen’s Sussex Drive (2012)
451 – 91. Patrick Somerville’s This Bright River (2012)
288 – 92. David Bergen’s The Age of Hope (288)
527 – 93. Tahir Shah’s Timbuctoo (2012)
341 – 94. Whitney Otto’s Eight Girls Taking Pictures (2012)
324 – 97. Ian Hamilton’s The Red Pole of Macau (2012)
—
23,798 (INCLUDING 5,608 NOVEMBER PAGES)

December

Good reading to you in 2012!