Making a Better Me: Why I Am Reading 20 Books by the End of the Year

I have decided that I am wanting to grow and develop. I want to become a better person or at least expand my mind. I have a B.S. degree in an occupation that frankly I have become bored with and because of financial constraints I cannot go back to college at this time. So I decided to do a little self education by reading books.
So I went online and ordered about 10 books from Barnes and Noble.com or Amazon.com. I am interested in cooking, business, and investing. Some of the books that I ordered were investment type books and others were about the science of cooking. Another book that I ordered, just because it sounded interesting, is called Julie and Julia by Julie Powell. It was a cooking section selection described as being about a woman who ends up cooking all the recipes in Julia Child’s cookbook Mastering the Art of French Cooking.
This sounded interesting to me just from the cooking aspect so I ordered it and thought that my wife might like it too. When my books came, the Julie and Julia came as an audio cd by mistake. This didn’t bother me too much. I decided to listen to it on my way to and from work. It is about a woman who is married to a good man, has a decent job, and life seems to be going well. The problem is that she had lost her ‘spark’ or is at the point, that I am, where she is just bored with her life. (Don’t send me hook-up proposals as I am happily married.) She was sitting around one evening, chatting with her husband about her predicament, and came up with the idea that she was going to cook all 500+ recipes in Mastering the Art of French Cooking in one year’s time. Her husband during the discussion suggested that she might start a blog. Well, she did both and found a lot about herself a long the way. By the way, they are making a movie based on the book.
This got me to thinking. Because I am wanting to expand my knowledge, I decided about a month ago (early August) that I would read 20 books by the end of the year. For some, that may seem like Mt. Everest and others it may seem like child’s play. I am in the Everest category. I am a slow reader and that seems like a lot. I usually read magazines and websites. My reading speed has increased since I started. Maybe I just needed a little practice. I have started going to the library again to the approval of my wife(so I will not buy so many books). So far I have read An American Hedge Fund by Timothy Sykes and Yes, You Can Get A Financial Life! by Ben Stein and Phil DeMuth. That is 2 down and 18 more to go. I am currently reading Even Buffett Isn’t Perfect by Vahan Janjigian, Rigged by Ben Mezrich, Molecular Gastronomy: Exploring the Science of Flavor by Herve’ This, and Sam Walton: Made in America by Sam Walton with John Huey.
I am planning on using my blog to keep up with how this is going as well as other happenings in my life with an occasional rant thrown in.
To quote from the movie Wanted, “what the f___ have you done lately?”