I love my family but this visit to see them made me sick as a dog. Stupid germs. Snot everywhere. At this moment I'm hopped up on Dayquil, cuddling a box of Kleenex, wearing a winter jacket and in bed. The laptop helps with warmth. This vacation was all fun and games till now. I've been relaxing in AZ and soon I will be in Vegas. Hopefully the cold will be gone by then.
Anyway. Last year my New Years resolution was to read 100 books. I think I read 103 or 104 in 2006, but in 2007 I only read 99. Sigh – so close! But number 99 was down to the wire – my dad was banging on my door to get my butt to the dining room and drink some apple cider at 11:58 but I was on the last page of Vicki Pettersson's The Taste of Night, book 2 of her Zodiac series and last book of 2007 for me. So I was waving frantically with one hand for him to leave and saying "OK!!!" and holding the book in the other. Hmm, only 99 books – I think I didn't make it because 1) I seem to be watching more TV this year. TV seems to be getting better. 2) I had more weeks towards the end of the year where I just wasn't in the mood to read. Just a week ago I was @ 95 books so I read 4 books in a week just for this deadline. Let's see if I can make 100 in 2008.
The TBR is at about 110 right now but I bought a couple of books on the vacation – one of the Jasper Fforde Thursday Next books and one Kelley Armstrong Women of the Otherworld book. But I probably won't read those for a while since they are further down the series than I'm at.
One shining point of light today – I won an ARC of Mark Henry's Happy Hour of the Damned. Someone reviewed it and called him "the Jasper Fforde of Paranormal." and the main character of the book "'Queen Betsy' zombie style " so it sounds like a lot of fun and I want to read it as soon as I can get my hands on it. It comes out in March so hopefully I will have read and reviewed it by then!
OK I go to drink more liquids. Later I can write about some of the books I read the past week.
specficromantic 
Happy New Year! I hope your cold gets better. When you guys go to Vegas, you MUST go see Ka. It is the BEST! We loved it. You should try to get tickets online, but if you can't, it's well worth your time to stand in the standby line. You can also get there at noon to get a pass so you can be at the head of the standby line. DO IT! It's so good.
I might start tracking how many books I read a year. But I doubt my number will be anywhere as close as yours. Do you count books you re-read? I re-read a lot.
Oooo, how did you win an ARC copy? I enter those writerspace contests, but have won absolutely nothing thus far. I want to win something! Actually I want to win the lottery so I can stay home and read all day. But I'd settle for winning a good book. Heh.
Hope you feel better and have fun the rest of your vacation!
Happy New Year to you too! I hope this cold goes away soon. This is day 3 and the worst day so far. Day 1 and 2 were snotty but I was able to function. Today I feel very grouchy and would like to give the cold back to people who gave it to me. Grr.
I think your number will surprise you. 100 sounds like a lot eh? But if you think about it that's only 2 books a week. Doable for me since I have enough time for 2 books a week. I was reading someone else's blog and she read over 200! I don't think I could read that much unless I retire. Or learn how to speedread.
Winning books – ok I'm a nerd. I added a lot of authors to my LJ friends plus I have many book related feeds on my google reader which I like to read daily. I like to read people's book reviews and stuff about the books they are writing. It's super interesting and I get info about books coming out I want to read. Every so often someone posts a little contest for a book so sometimes I'll enter. And sometimes I'm lucky. Oh and I also joined a couple of author's mailing lists too and they put contests in there. This one was though Mark Henry's LJ – mdhenry. I was sneezing and miserable and thinking.. oh I guess I'll try..
OK thinking some more and some places that typically have contests for free books along with the reviews and whatnots. I'll enter if the book looks interesting. Maybe this shall help you in your quest.
1) Dear Author and The Good, Bad and Unread (I like Dear Authors reviews best, especially those by Jane).
2) SciFi Chick – scifichick.com
3) Lynn Viehl's blog – I like her books too – I won the StarDoc series and I've been slowly going through them and I like them. In a book or two I think she'll be on my list of writers who has a consistently satisfying level of writing. She writes in a few genres. Plus her blog is really interesting and she updates daily. I think maybe once a week she does a giveaway? pbackwriter.blogspot.com