A solution for missing categories

My first reaction to the unassigned categories list was "94 books down!"

But then I had a better idea. One of the drawbacks of this contest is that I only get one book per category, no matter what. This means that sometimes I have to skip extremely interesting looking books because the category is already filled. Even though I've only read 6 books, I've already had a dozen or more blocked for this reason.

My solution is to use the unassigned categories as wildcards. For each unassigned category, I will read another book from the same class. For example, there are 7 unassigned categories throughout 600 Technology. That means I can read 7 more books from any category in 600.

Another advantage is that it makes the contest a nice round number. Instead of saying I'm reading 906 books, I can say I'm reading 1000. It also makes a lot of math simpler for things like progress bars and charts.

And before some rules lawyer out there brings it up, yes, I initially considered staying in the same subcategory for the substitution. For example, the replacement to 699 [Unassigned] must be something in 690 Buildings.

I rejected it because I don't think it will work very well. The reason there are unassigned numbers in a subcategory is that there simply aren't enough topics in that area to need numbers. So I'm probably not going to have very many duplicate books in that subcategory in the first place. In some cases, such as the 110 Metaphysics area, my library literally doesn't have ANY books, so finding a replacement in that category would be madness.

Of course, if you can't live with this egregious rule bending, you are more than welcome to start your own, far superior, Dewey reading contest. Please let me know so that I can link to your site.

800 is a problem

Initially, I wasn't too worried about 800 Literature & rhetoric. I haven't read many classics since I was forced to in high school, so I thought this would be a great chance to read the great works of the world. As a result, I didn't particularly focus on finding works in the 800s.

Accordingly, it's become a problem category. I have 5 books in the 800s, but they are in two categories 808 and 818.

808 Rhetoric & collections of literature appears to be where every book on the process of writing is dumped, and has roughly ten thousand entries on writing everything from writing children's fiction to writing exciting procedural thrillers featuring hermaphrodite forensic accountants. Frequent readers of my blog can look forward to my writing improving after I finally reach that section.

818 Miscellaneous writings (Under 810 American & Canadian literature) is broad enough to include:

• Walden by this Thoreau fellow, who I hear is good.
  
• The zombie survival guide : complete protection from the living dead, an important topic for anyone.
  
• I am America (and so can you!) by Stephen Colbert, former vice presidential candidate to Mike Huckabee.
  

It won't be hard to find something to read in 818, but narrowing it down could be difficult.

The other problem is that much of the literature is classified fiction, and doesn't appear in the non-fiction numbers. For instance, 833 German fiction has about 20 books, mostly about German fiction. There is a book on Gunter Grass, but none of the books by Gunter Grass.

On the other hand, Dante can be found in 851 Italian poetry. Is the distinction whether the book is modern? I notice Mary Shelley's works are still in fiction.

Maybe I should have known more about the DDC before I set this challenge. If only there were a book on the topic, and some sort of local facility that would store the book and lend it freely to anyone who wanted to read it.

Rules

Here are the ground rules:

1. I will read one book from each Dewey Decimal classification, from 000 to 999, skipping any of the classes that are empty or unused. Also, if I run across a category that is impossible to read, such as "Dictionaries of Spanish Train Parts", I'm probably going to skip that too.
2. Nothing I have read before counts towards finishing. That is, only books that I read after starting this blog will be counted.
   
3. I'll try to write a short review of each book I finish, and publish it here.
4. No, I'm not doing them in order. That would be sheer madness.
5. If I read a book that's not from my library, then I'll determine the most accurate number for it by looking it up in several online library catalogs, and use that.
6. I'm not in any hurry, and I have no expected end date. "Before I die" would be nice, as I really don't want to haunt my local library for centuries finishing up.
   

Questions, comments, want to sell me iPods? Post a comment.