Kicking off 2016: A New Year of Books

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.

1. 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).
2. 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.
3. 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.
4. 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.
5. I'd love to read Chekhov.  He is another author who I 'keep meaning to read' and have been collecting in earnest.
6. The last two books by Antonia White from her quartet of books about Clara Batchelor. 
7. Storms of War by Kate Williams or some other good WWI novel.
8. 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.
9. 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.
10. The Backward Shadow by Lynn Reid Banks because I loved The L-Shaped Room.
11. 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.
12. Tove Jansson's books.  Because she's been on my mind lately
13. 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!