And Autumn Turns to Winter

December is here, and, in my mind, that means winter is here, too. I know, I know. It isn't officially winter yet, but for all intensive purposes, it's here for me and my blog because I want to make a new seasonal reading list. But first, let's see how I did with my Autumn 2012 Reading List...

• David Sedaris' Naked
• Frank McCourt's Angela's Ashes
• J.D. Salinger's Franny and Zooey [finished 11/7/12]
• John Irving's The World According to Garp
• Mary Ann Shaffer's The Guernsey Literary and Potato Peel Pie Society [finished 9/21/12]
• Erin Morgenstern's The Night Circus [finished 9/1/12]
• Diane Wynne Jones' Howl's Moving Castle [finished 9/14/12]
• Ellen Raskin's The Westing Game [finished 10/30/12]
• Norton Juster's The Phantom Tollbooth
• Vera Brosgol's Anya's Ghost [finished 10/13/12]
• Alison Bechdel's Fun Home [finished 11/8/12]
• Art Spiegelman's Maus I
• Art Spiegelman's Maus II
• Daniel Clowes' Ghost World [finished 9/12/12]
• Mark Gatiss' The Vesuvius Club Graphic Edition [finished 9/21/12]
• Sabrina Jones' Isadora Duncan [finished 11/14/12]
• Mat Johnson's Right State
• Max Brooks’ World War Z [finished 11/5/12]
• Ray Bradbury’s Fahrenheit 451 [finished 11/13/12]
• Orson Scott Card’s Ender’s Shadow
• Ursula K. Le Guin’s A Wizard of Earthsea
• John Kennedy Toole’s A Confederacy of Dunces

Looks like out of the 22 books, I've read 12 of them, which is about 54%. That's better than the 38% I read of my Summer 2012 Reading List, albeit that list had more books on it.

Now for the fun part: making a new list for Winter 2013.

• John Green's The Fault in Our Stars
• David Sedaris' Naked
• John Irving's The World According to Garp
• Sharon Creech's Replay
• George Bernard Shaw's Pygmalion
• John Steinbeck's East of Eden
• D.H. Lawrence's Sons and Lovers
• Marjane Satrapi's Chicken With Plums
• Raina Telgemeier's Drama
• Stefan Petrucha's Nancy Drew #15-21
• Martin Rowson's The Wasteland
• Miss Lasko-Gross' A Mess of Everything

As you can see, there are only twelve books on this list, as opposed to the much longer lists I've created in the past. I'm shortening this list as a psychological experiment. I hypothesize that a shorter list will be less demanding and therefor easier to accomplish [Captain Obvious over here]. Also, I believe I will be less inclined to stray from the list as well. I actually read 5 additional books this Autumn that weren't on my reading list because I wanted to branch out and away from the strictness of only reading from a prescribed list, even though I myself created the list in the first place. Though I have fun creating these reading lists, I have less fun pressuring myself to complete them. So, lets see if a shorter list benefits me.

Do you make reading lists? Are they seasonal? Do you enjoy following them, or do you tend to stray from them, like me?