It began with a trip to Books-a-Million and buy two and get one free deal. I purchased the first three books in Robert Jordan’s The Wheel of Time series. I love epic fantasy novels, but Jordan’s (and later Brandon Sanderson’s) books intimidated me because of their length. For example, the Eye of the World weighs in at a whopping wordcount of 310,874 words. Geez! That’s a commitment in and of itself, and there are fourteen books in the series. Nevertheless, I’ve accepted the challenge.

Okay, now it’s time to show my dorkiness. To complete a book a month, I need to read between 25-30 pages per day. (Yes, I used a calculator to figure this out.) I know. I feel the judgment of the speed readers. However, I wanted to keep my leisure reading goal manageable, because family time and pastoral duties. Not to mention, I’m working on a graduate degree too. (Umm… Why did I decide to tackle these books?)

Reading fantasy fiction relaxes me. It gives me an escape from the rat race of everyday life. What do you do to relax? I’d love to hear about it in the comments.