Growing up I was a highly successful participant in the Book It! program. I don’t remember all of the specifics, but for every certain amount of books I read I received a certificate for a free personal pan pizza at Pizza Hut. I hooked my family up with a lot of pizza. Even though the challenge was just intended to be a personal one, I saw a way to win prizes for something I loved to do anyway and I went for it.

This same things happened with every reading program I joined, including one where I completed the entire summer goal for reading in one month. I’ve known since I was young that I would never win more than a participation award for athletics. But put me in a competitive reading environment and I’m golden.

Last year I had two friends of mine mention their “Goodread Goal.” I’ve been a member of Goodreads since May of 2010 and I had never heard iof a Goodreads Goal. I looked into it and knew I would set one for myself for 2013. I read 53 books in 2012, which I thought was pretty amazing – avergaing one book a week. For 2013 I wanted to push myself so when January 1 rolled around, I set my goal at 55 books for the year.

What happens next is predictably obsessive and unnessarily competitive. All this year I have had the number 55 in my head and I’ve been furiously reading. On August 11, 2013, I completed my 55th book for the year. That means in about 32 weeks –20 weeks ahead of schedule – I finished my goal. I averaged 1.7 books a week. And I feel it necessary to point out that though this stack did include some fluffier titles including one Nicholas Sparks book and many Kathy Recihs novel (the series on which the television show Bones is based), I also read some weightier titles.

Goodreads has suggested that I up my year’s reading goal. I think I’m safer to be content looking at my completed goal and to stop reading competitively.

My top 5 book recommendations from my year so far are:

  1. Mr. Penumbra’s 24-Hour Bookstore by Robin Sloan: Thoroughly enjoyable story with a nerdy plot.
  2. Beautiful Ruins by Jess Walter: I just loved this novel. The cover art is beautiful and so is the writing throughout.
  3. Explore Diabetes with Owls by David Sedaris: So funny!
  4. Mary and Lou and Rhoda and Ted: And all the Brilliant Minds Who Made The Mary Tyler Moore Show a Classic by Jennifer Keishin Armstrong: Although not a light read, this book gave me great insight in television and made me better appreciate the history of women in television.
  5. Code Name Verity by Elizabeth Wein: Total tween novel, but I can’t help myself.

Here are the books I read, in reverse chronological order.

  1. The Engagements by J. Courtney Sullivan
  2. The Choice by Nicholas Sparks
  3. Visitation Street by Ivy Pochoda
  4. Let’s Explore Diabetes with Owls by David Sedaris
  5. A Mercy by Toni Morrison
  6. And the Mountains Echoed by Khaled Hosseini
  7. Brain on Fire: My Month of Madness by Susannah Cahalan
  8. The Fields by Kevin Maher
  9. Purity by Jackson Pearce
  10. Arcadia by Lauren Groff
  11. Driving Sideways by Jess Riley
  12. The Other Typist by Suzanne Rindell
  13. This Side of Jealousy (The Innocents, #2) by Lili Peloquin
  14. Calling Me Home by Jullie Kibler
  15. Conversations with Mom: An Aging Baby Boomer, in Need of an Elder, Writes to Her Dead Mother by Betsy Robinson
  16. Mary and Lou and Rhoda and Ted: And all the Brilliant Minds Who Made The Mary Tyler Moore Show a Classic by Jennifer Keishin Armstrong
  17. Chronology of an Egg by Peter Tieryas Liu
  18. A Place at the Table by Susan Rebecca White
  19. The Girl Who Would Be King by Kelly Thompson
  20. Nine Years Under: Coming of Age in an Inner-City Funeral Home by Sherri Booker
  21. A Different Blue by Amy Harmon
  22. The House Girl by Tara Conklin
  23. The First Rule of Swimming by Courtney Angela Brkic
  24. Beautiful Ruins by Jess Walter
  25. The End of Sex: How Hookup Culture is Leaving a Generation Unhappy, Sexually Unfulfilled, and Confused About Intimacy by Donna Freitas
  26. Homeward Bound: Why Women are Embracing the New Domesticity by Emily Matchar
  27. All the Roads That Lead from Home by Anne Leigh Parrish
  28. The Dinner by Herman Koch
  29. Mr. Penumbra’s 24-Hour Bookstore by Robin Sloan
  30. A Tale for the Time Being by Ruth Ozeki
  31. Crossing to Safety by Wallace Stegner
  32. Code Name Verity by Elizabeth Wein
  33. Seating Arrangements by Maggie Shipstead
  34. The Fault in Our Stars by John Green
  35. The Book of Madness and Cures by Regina O’Melveny
  36. The Orphanmaster by Jean Zimmerman
  37. Flash and Bones (Temperance Brennan, #14) by Kathy Reichs
  38. Spider Bones (Temperance Brennan, #13) by Kathy Reichs
  39. Wonder by R.J. Palacio
  40. Defending Jacob by William Landay
  41. 206 Bones (Temperance Brennan, #12) by Kathy Reichs
  42. Devil Bones (Temperance Brennan, #11) by Kathy Reichs
  43. Bones to Ashes (Temperance Brennan, #10) by Kathy Reichs
  44. Break No Bones (Temperance Brennan, #9) by Kathy Reichs
  45. Where Things Come Back by John Corey Whaley
  46. The Age of Miracles by Karen Thompson Walker
  47. Cross Bones (Temperance Brennan, #8) by Kathy Reichs
  48. Monday Mourning (Temperance Brennan, #7) by Kathy Reichs
  49. Bare Bones (Temperance Brennan, #6) by Kathy Reichs
  50. Grave Secrets (Temperance Brennan, #5) by Kathy Reichs
  51. Fatal Voyage (Temperance Brennan, #4) by Kathy Reichs
  52. Deadly Decisions (Temperance Brennan, #3) by Kathy Reichs
  53. Death du Jour (Temperance Brennan, #2) by Kathy Reichs
  54. Déjà Dead (Temperance Brennan, #1) by Kathy Reichs
  55. Women from the Ankle Down: The Story of Shoes and How They Define Us by Ra Bergstein
This post originally appeared on Kate’s Point of View. © Kate. All rights reserved.