Today is the last day that I’m going to spend writing about reading. If I don’t actually start to turn some book-chat time into book-reading time, I’ll be signing myself into book-therapy before the end of the month, a page-turning failure.

But it’s true that, even though I’ve mentioned a lot of plans here (my Must Reads, the three Reading Challenges and Canada Reads), there are still a couple of Ongoing Reading Projects that will be laying claiming to part of 2010’s Reading Year that I haven’t mentioned yet: the Viragos, the Persephones, the Orange Prize nominees, the Toronto Book Award nominees, and my MRE authors (check the pull-down menu above if you’re curious).

These are life-long projects, if only because the category of authors from whose oeuvres I Must Read Everything is constantly enlarging. It starts with a single sample. And sometimes that’s all it takes. I decided that I had to read everything of Helen Simpson’s on the basis of a single collection (Dear George) although I’ve read several other stories since.

It’s possible that I might feel the same way about Agatha Christie and, just in case, I’ve made up a spreadsheet and have tracked down the first volume and started to read it last night. You can’t have too many book spreadsheets: it’s just not possible. Just as it’s actually impossible to have too much bookchat. (Or, is it?)

As Virginia Woolf said: “Sometimes I think heaven must be one continuous unexhausted reading.”