Early last month, I had an email in my inbox, letting me know someone had linked to my 101 in 1001 list. That someone was the sweet Deborah Zoe, who mentioned my name as one in a group of awesome photographers who inspired her in starting her own 101 list.
Which prompted me to ask myself, “Ohhhh right, Gail! Remember when you used to care about your 101 list?” Shheessshh. I’m embarrassed to say I’d taken my eye off goal-setting and that list for some time now. I think the reason being that, when I reviewed my 101 goals, so much had changed that a chunk of the goals I found there were no longer relevant to my current life—nor did the list factor in new goals I’ve made for myself since. So, I decided it was time to dust that list off. Change the rules to this and give it a makeover, which meant removing some old goals that may have been high in mind in 2010 and adding those better suited for 2012.
And so, this is the first of a series of posts where I’ll attempt to “catch up” on some of these goals that, forgotten or not, I’m pumped to have crossed off the list along the way. And blog readers, here’s to you being inspired by Deb and starting your own lists in 2012. If you do, make sure to link ‘em to me so I can cheer y’all on!
#16) Read three books a month for a year
If you know me fairly well, you know reading is my No. 1 activity I love to do. Truly. I am that nerd who could sit with her book in her face for 8 hours if you’d let me (which is why I love airports so gosh darn much 
) In 2011, I accomplished my goal of reading three books a month for a year. I may have exceeded it a bit, actually, but that’s not the point. The point is to share that I hope all of you reading this post consider setting a reading goal of your own in 2012. The BEST way to go about doing that is using GoodReads. If you’re not a member, GoodReads is an awesome site that lets you track the books you’ve read, the books you want to read and/or are currently reading. It’s a great network of folks and I’ve discovered so many books that way. If you join or are a current member and aren’t already, make sure to become my friend, ‘kay? Encouraging friends to pick up a good book is something I love to do almost as much as the act of reading itself!
On that note, from the stack of books below, here were a few of my favorites I read in 2011. If you’re looking for a great book to dive in to, I couldn’t recommend any of these more (reviews of all of these are on my GoodReads site if you want to learn more):
An Object of Beauty by Steve Martin // Alice I Have Been by Melanie Benjamin // Bossypants by Tina Fey // The Paris Wife by Paula McLain // Extremely Loud and Incredibly Close by Jonathan Safran Foer // Bittersweet by Shauna Niequist // Rebecca by Daphne du Maurier // Cutting for Stone by Abrama Verghese // Rules of Civility by Amor Towles (my second favorite read of 2011) // The Language of Flowers by Vanessa Diffenbaugh // The Art of Fielding by Chad Harbach (my favorite read of 2011)
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by Gail Werner
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