Happy 2016 Everyone! I wish you all a peaceful and joyous New Year!
It's always a little scary looking back at the previous year's first post of the year, even when it (supposedly) has no particular plans!
"Ah, the anticipation of a fresh new reading year. Whatever disappointments came along last year are gone and now I am looking forward to a new year filled with good books and no expectations. This year I have no plans to share. I am going to read at whim and not worry about accomplishing something, completing tasks or crossing books off lists."
Hah. Famous last words. I'm always disappointed it seems--particularly with my reading. I think this year I am going to try not to be disappointed with my reading endeavors. I did at least read at whim, though I was crossing off books from a list at the end . . . But you know, I didn't do so badly in the end as it turns out. December was my very best reading month of the whole year. I cleaned up my reading pile (sort of anyway) and managed to finish twelve books. In one month. Me. That's almost unheard of when it comes to my reading these days. I finished the Little House books, finished the year with a book by Nell Dunn which gave the year a little symmetry since I started the year with a book by her, too.
I'm not going to make any plans again this year other than that I will hopefully be reading lots of good books. Okay, one correction, and reading my NYRB subscription books in a timely manner. I do want to start the year with a list of books or themes that I would like to think about and maybe read this year. A baker's dozen of reading ideas. A few specific book but more types of books I want to pick up over the course of the year--reading paths to get me going. Mostly I just like lists and have been making one anyway, so I might as well use it.
- The Stranger's Child by Alan Hollinghurst -- because it is a book I ALWAYS say I want to read but then pick up something else. (I have a number of books like this, but this one comes to mind right now).
- Elena Ferrante's Neapolitan Novels because I really want to read them, everyone who has read them seems to have loved them, and they are sitting on my reading pile.
- Find a new comfort read. I can pick one from my reading pile, one tried and true, but I need some new blood, so to speak. So, I will be looking for some really comforting read this year to add to my list.
- Reread a favorite book. Usually this means a Clare Chambers novel, but there are so many favorites. Coming Home by Rosamond Pilcher happens to be on my reading pile at the moment.
- I'd love to read Chekhov. He is another author who I 'keep meaning to read' and have been collecting in earnest.
- The last two books by Antonia White from her quartet of books about Clara Batchelor.
- Storms of War by Kate Williams or some other good WWI novel.
- Spool of Thread by Anne Tyler or one of her other novels, because I am the only person in the world who has never read her.
- Classics. I was thinking how cool it would be to cycle through the centuries--start with the 17th and work onwards. But maybe just anything, but not all 20th and 21st century classics. And maybe more than 4 like last year.
- The Backward Shadow by Lynn Reid Banks because I loved The L-Shaped Room.
- Something romantic. Satisfying romantic, but not exactly a romance novel. I'll know it when I read it. I've been looking for one of late with little luck, so the search continues.
- Tove Jansson's books. Because she's been on my mind lately
- And I want to try and read my way through as many of Laurie King's Mary Russell mysteries as I can manage. Well, I'm in the mood for her today anyway (and actually the last few weeks), but I know how my mood changes. So read my way through some mystery series as I collect quite a few of them and reading continuity can be a good thing sometimes.
So, the question is, now that I have made this list will I look at it again before next December when I am frantically trying to catch up once more? Maybe. Maybe not, but sometimes it's just fun thinking of reading possibilities, and I have to start somewhere this new year. And as you can see I have two brand new blank books to help keep my reading sorted. So happy reading everyone, I'm looking forward to lots of book chat this 2016!