Readability Test & the 999 Challenge

Today I was reading a friend's blog and found a link to a website that tests a webpage's readability level. So I put in my URL and it said high school level. I also read that according to national literacy statistics, half of Americans read at the eighth-grade level or lower. That was disappointing to me.

I'm so glad that my Dad passed down his love of books to me. He kept hand-written lists of books he read, mostly during his high school and college days. Inspired by that, I kept a reading journal-log for several years but this year I ditched the paper and went completely digital. I think if Daddy were still around he would get a kick out of the reading challenges we have on LibraryThing.

I've never participated in an LT challenge before because some are daunting. There's the Dewey Challenge where you read a book in each of the Dewey Decimal numbers. There are groups reading all the Pulitzer Prize winners or Orange Prize books or Booker prize books. I'm not that much into 'literary' fiction so those are not for me. I've chosen to do the 999 Challenge. You define 9 categories (anything you want) and then read 9 books in each category during the year 2009. Really crazy people try to finish all 81 books by 9/9/09. I've already read 82 books this year so I know I can do it. To challenge myself I picked a few categories that I don't normally read (Travelogue and Self-Improvement). I am insanely excited about the 999. Must be the lack of sleep.