My 2020 Book Challenge: "Reading the Alphabet"
Here's a little setup I'm going to try out with my reading habits this year. I figured I'd share the idea, in case anyone else is interested in running it (or something similar) for themselves.
Rules
- I must complete one book for each letter of the English alphabet (26 total).
- A book fulfills a letter by having the title or any part of the author's name start with that letter.
- I do not have to go in alphabetical order.
- I CAN rearrange entries at will.
Example
I realize that's hard to visualize, so here's how the first few letters might look once completed (these books are placeholders):
A: Jeff VanderMeer - Annihilation
B: Tina Fey - Bossypants
C: Arthur C. Clarke - Rendezvous with Rama
D: Dava Sobel - Longitude
Explanations/Clarifications
Let's say the first book I read is Kurt Vonnegut's Slaughterhouse-Five. I could have that count for K (Kurt), V (Vonnegut), or S (Slaughterhouse).
I'm choosing to ignore articles in titles. The Martian would thus count for M (Martian) rather than T (The).
If an author has a single name (e.g. Voltaire), I can only use that one letter (V). If an author commonly uses more than first and last names (e.g. Chimamanda Ngozi Adichie, Hunter S. Thompson), I can use any parts (C N or A, and H S or T, respectively).
If the book title is/begins with a number or symbol, I can count it under the letter that corresponds to the name/pronunciation of the number or symbol (e.g. 1984 would be N (Nineteen) while 1Q84 would be O (One)).
As the process goes on and more letters get filled, my choices will get narrower. I am allowed to swap around books in order to accommodate new choices, but only within the parameters of the rules above. So if I initially had Kurt Vonnegut's Slaughterhouse-Five down for S but then I decide to read Stanley Schmidt's The Sins of the Fathers, I can move Slaughterhouse-Five to V for Vonnegut since Sins can only work for S.
Purpose
I came up with this for a couple of reasons:
- It's a semi-fun way to jazz up my regular reading habits.
- It gives me a goal to work towards.
- It will help me narrow down choices from my immense backlog and interest list, especially when I have only a few spots left to fill.
- It's free-form enough that I don't feel boxed-in, but it's restrictive enough that it'll likely force me to read some stuff I wouldn't usually choose.
- 26 books for 26 letters is coincidentally perfect for an average of one book every two weeks, which feels like the right pace for me.
Process Note
I'm only going to count books I read with my eyes rather than books I listen to. This isn't because I have anything against audiobooks (I love them!) but because I've actually gotten TOO dependent on them and am not sitting down to read books like I used to. I'm hoping this can restart my reading habit. I put this here rather than in the rules because I don't want to restrict anyone else should they choose to do this exercise.
I plan to post updates on my "alphabet progress" in the scheduled "What are you reading these days?" threads.
Anyway, feel free to share your thoughts on this process. This is entirely theory-based at the moment, as I've never actually attempted it, so if there's anything I've failed to account for or any potential hiccups you see, let me know.
Also, if you're wanting to steal the idea, whether wholesale or in part, go for it! It is ripe for modding or tweaking. I'm considering doing a second, separate alphabet for myself that's limited only to graphic novels, for example. I also think it would be neat for people to do it in other alphabets, in languages other than English.
Furthermore, it's a generic enough setup that you could do it for more than just reading too. You could use the ruleset as written with music (using artist and album names) or movies (using titles and directors). Games are a bit tougher since you really only have the title to work with (since there's often not an identifiable "author"), but with some tweaks I think it could still happen.
... or "F" (for "Fathers"?) :P
While your rules are interesting and possibly even quirky, I'm not sure they count as restrictive. I can cover all 26 letters with books from just two shelves in my library: "Science Fiction paperbacks" and "Star Trek novels" (which is a subset of science fiction anyway). With titles like 'Tau Zero', 'Xenocide', 'Juxtaposition', 'The Years of Rice and Salt', 'A Wrinkle in Time', 'Vulcan's Glory', and 'Q-Squared', I can fill the list without branching out at all.
But, as you say, it is one way of narrowing down the choice of which book to read next when there are too many books on your "to read" shelf.
I expect it'll be fun for you!
Interestingly enough, I had originally planned to have all major words in the title be fair game, but with some test runs I realized it made the restrictions almost meaningless, especially books with longer titles (see David McRaney's You Are Not So Smart: Why You Have Too Many Friends on Facebook, Why Your Memory Is Mostly Fiction, and 46 Other Ways You're Deluding Yourself which, despite plenty of letter repetition, would still work for almost half the alphabet). Thus I settled on the first word rule.
You're right that it's not very restrictive, but that's what I wanted, really. I wanted to be able to fulfill the requirements with books that I already have or that are on my to-read list, so this is more of a way of helping cut down the analysis paralysis of staring at my shelves wondering which book to read next. Rather than being allowed to pick anything, I'll be forced into deciding between, say, three or four books that can fulfill the letter N.
I don't think it'll be transformative or anything, but like you said, I expect it'll be fun!
Oops. I missed that bit!
Yeah, I got that.
Enjoy!