Book System 1

Following my post yesterday, I am going to start a new system for organizing my books and reading them.

THREADS: I usually read more than one book at a time, so I will start a threading system in which I explore books relevant to a central theme/subject/author. For example, in one thread I may read books by Solzhenitsyn, then branch out into other Russian literature that people have recommended to me.

Threads must have the following properties:
- scope: the subject/theme must be fairly limited. For example, having my theme be "Russian literature" is too vague, but a theme like "Solzhenitsyn and other Soviet authors who wrote protests against the Stalinist system" would be good. Another way I could group it is from the "recommended readings" appendix of a book that I recently read.
- length: a thread can't go on forever. I must stop reading about any given subject so I can start a new one. But should I have a cut-and-dry rule for all threads or should I make rules as I go along?

I must also have a "random books" thread that I can read random books in. Then if I like a book enough to pursue the subject further then I can make a new thread starting with that book.
(Another part of "random books" is that there are a lot of books loaned, given, or recommended to me which I give reading priority to. This way I can read them.)

NOTEBOOK: lapis1 had a GREAT idea! I'll carry a notebook with lists of books that I want to read. I'll group these books by thread but also be sure to have the genre, author, title so I can find them in a bookstore.

This is rudimentary, but I WILL start making my "books to buy" list right now. I have lists of books to buy but they are all over the place.

Oh, and as for podcasts, I made a document listing how long each one usually is and how often they come out, and I calculated how many hours I have to spend every day and week in order to listen to all the podcasts I want to listen to. 1 hour a day and 13 hours a week, so 20 hours per week. Too much. Grr.

I LOVE Google Reader.