"Why ask useless questions? How deep is the ocean? How high is the sky? Who is John Galt?"

After spending a week baking in the sun on the beaches of North Carolina, summer has begun. And so has my "Summer Reading Challenge".

Every summer I try to read as many books as possible, trying to beat my previous record of 15.5 books in 3 months. It all began when academia took over my life and I was only reading books for class, and never for fun.

However, I've been out of school for over a year already, allowing ample time to read all the books I want, averaging a book a week. So the initial point of this challenge no longer exists. Unfortunately I didn't keep tabs on what I've been reading, so you could probably take any 3 consecutive months and find I've already far exceeded my standing record.

I've been thinking of doing this challenge anyway, making my first official book of summer Ayn Rand's Atlas Shrugged. Being over 1,000 pages, it is nearly 4 times the amount of my average summer reading books, which then leads me to more questions... Do I have to count this as one book? or can I divide it into 3 to make it more accurate to the basis for this challenge?
My god, am I really trying to find loopholes in my own damn challenge? That's sad. Perhaps I should have started a less controversial book, but I was suddenly anxious to read this one because it is set in a state of crisis, similar to our current economical situation; a dystopian world which adheres to a majority of my favorite books... besides there's talk of a movie.