Everyone should know that September 19th is National Talk Like A Pirate Day. The creators, Ol’ Chumbucket and Cap’n Slappy, read from their book A Li’l Pirate’s ABSeas in hopes that you will order a copy for yourself.

2008 is over. I managed to read 44 books this past year. Which doesn’t seem like that many. I’ve been reading blogs where people have read up to 75 books this year. I’m willing to bet that they are not full-time college students. Not that I am bother or jealous of people with more free time than me.

I did read some books I really enjoyed this year. Douglas Coupland is on his way to becoming one of my favorite authors, but I need to read a few more of his books to be sure. Some other new authors I discovered this past year were Jonathan Sellwood (The Pinball Theory of Apocalypse), Paul A. Toth (Fishnet), Scott Heim (We Disappear), and Joey Comeau (Lockpick Pornography). I would like to read more of all of their works.

In terms of authors that I have read previously, Marc Acito (Attack of the Theater People) and the Dave Barry-Ridley Pearson combo (Peter and the Shadow Thieves) wrote follow ups to their older books. Both books were better than the first ones in my opinion.

In 2009 I am attempting two reading challenges. The first is the 20 Books in 2009 challenge which now that I think about it, it shouldn’t be that hard. The other other challenge is one I made myself where I plan on reading 10 books that contain pirates. I call it, The Book Pirate Challenge. There might be other challenges that pop up later on this year, but I will worry about those when the time comes.

To wrap things up, Happy 2009.