Where has the year gone? I'm not going to link back to last year's "plans for 2010" post, because I didn't really accomplish any of them. I did read a number of essays (and discovered I really like nature essays), but weekly essay reading flizzled out somewhere in the midpoint of this year. I didn't read all the Galsworthy novels about the Forsyte family, though there is still plenty of time to read more whenever the mood arises. And my other plans, well...
So the plan for next year is to not have many plans. At least I'm going to keep my plans very simple. There are three things I'd like to do: read all the books on this list. I've already started two of them, and as there are only thirteen books that works out to about a book a month. I tried to make the list a nice mix of genres, authors and time periods.
Instead of choosing a really long novel, I'm going to try and read Anthony Powell's quartet of books A Dance to the Music of Time. I might still read a long book here or there, but this is my big project. Each book, or movement as they are called, consists of three novels and each seems to have less than three hundred pages. The books were published between 1951 and 1975. New York Times critic, Elizabeth Janeway, wrote, "A book which created a world and explores it in depth, which creates brilliantly living and diverse characters and then watches them grow and change in their milieu...Powell's world is as large and as complex as Proust's." The first book begins in the 1920s, but more about this later.
My last plan is to have a "season of spy novels". There's nothing formal about this, but I've been collecting spy novels for a while and thought it would be fun to have a little reading binge. I've already read Stella Rimington's (former head of MI5) first novel and will write about it later next week. I'm planning on John Buchan's The Thirty Nine Steps being my first book of 2011 (on my list of books!), as it is quite short and will be the perfect book to curl up with later tonight and tomorrow. And then I can watch the recent movie adaptation of it starring the rather attractive Rupert Penry-Jones. Much like mysteries I think spy novels are going to prove very addicting.
So there you have it. That's it. I'll also be reading along with The Slaves of Golconda and with Caroline's Literature and War Readalong, and be participating in the Virago reading week later in January, so I'll have plenty to keep me busy, but still will have lots of room to read at whim, too.
And how about you? Any plans or reading challenges? Or do you prefer to read whatever happens to appeal the most at the moment?
Since this is it for 2010, Best Wishes for the New Year! Have a safe and fun holiday!