At the library yesterday I discovered something awful! Or at least, I thought it was awful at the time. My library doesn’t actually own books for all of the number currently in use as part of the Dewey Decimal system! I wasn’t sure how I wanted to deal with that. Should I just skip the numbers they don’t have for now and continue as much in order as possible? Or should I just read books in any order I wanted?
My last post actually led me to the answer. As I concluded the, there is definitely some value to reading books on similar topics all together. You begin to see connections between the books and learn what makes that sort of book interesting to you. So while I will stop going precisely in order, I will try to read related books in clusters so I can still see those connections. Hopefully this will help me follow the advice given by Kim at Sophisticated Dorkiness and not become a reading robot. It’s very important to me to continue enjoying reading. No thinking “I have to finish this book so I can review it!”. That’s a great way to lose the joy of reading and an attitude I’ve been doing my best to avoid.
Since I’ve started this project, walking up and down past the non-fiction section has been a lot of fun. I love looking at all the different exciting books and topics ahead! I think now that I’m picking my own topics this project will become even more enjoyable 🙂 I’m also excited to take the rest of this week to do some off-project reading, at least until I get back to the library. I think I’m finally going to read Blink by Malcolm Gladwell (a book which I’ve wanted to read since it came out in 2005!) and hopefully do some more non-fiction reading as well.
Doing Dewey 
I love reading books in clusters, especially books that have slightly different takes on a certain topic. It makes me feel like I’m getting a well-rounded look at an issue. I hope you’re able to find a way to do your project that makes you feel accomplished and continues to keep reading fun!
Thanks Kim! I really like how things are going right now and I definitely agree with you – reading a lot of books on a similar topic makes me feel like I have a better understanding of the topic. A large part of what motivated me to start this project is the goal of being better-rounded. I think a lot more creativity is possible if you know a little about a lot of things 🙂