Nearly two years ago, I looked at my 'to read' pile and realised that it never seemed to go down any further in size. I became pretty curious to work out just how much I was reading so I decided to start to track the books that I was reading on an Excel spreadsheet. The first year saw me (just) break the hundred book barrier, but this year it's looking like the end count will be around the low-mid eighties. I'm guessing that the dropped numbers are a combination of the change in my job at work hitting free time, and the fact that I have read a fair few RPGs this year. For some reason, they always take longer!

I was lucky enough to be given a number of new books for Christmas, with quite a range. Current affairs (Robert Fisk's book on the Middle East) through to history (Atlas of the Year 1000, Persian Fire), Humour/Fantasy (Terry Pratchett and Lynne Truss' "Talk to the Hand") through to SF (Stross' Accelerando and Ken MacLeod's latest). So the reading stockpile is as high as every. On top of that, I've a few RPGs to read like the new Deryni Game, and the new edition of 'The Burning Wheel'.