Last year I never made any resolutions other than to start reading all the Man Booker prize winners and to blog about my reactions. I never diverted from that course entirely but I did go down some side roads along the way as I picked up reading recommendations from other bloggers and got involved with the Classics Club Challenge
Now I’ve had the benefit of almost a year of concentrated reading and blogging, I can think more clearly on plans and resolutions for 2013. So here’s how they stand so far:
Discover what makes the novel – well ‘novel’
The word ‘novel’ trips easily off my tongue these days. But when did this phenomena called the novel actually start? What were those early ‘novelists’ trying to achieve? Did the concept of the novel change over time? These and many others keep rattling around my brain. I have vague answers to some of them from the Open University courses I’ve done in recent years (they were far more helpful than my bricks and mortar English lit courses in fact) but I want to dig deeper. So I’m going to spend some of my time trying to get to grips with these questions and posting what I learn on the blog site.
Stretch myself
I enjoyed discovering new authors last year so I want to make sure I continue to do that. I know I’ll always want to read old friends like George Eliot, Jane Austen, Wilkie Collins but I also want to make room for new friends. Coupled with that, I want to read more authors from different countries of the world. To make sure I do this, I’ve set myself a Reading Along the World Lines challenge to take me around the world. It has two elements
- Reading Along the Equator
- Reading Along the Prime Meridian
I haven’t yet identified which books I’ll select for each of the countries – I’ll be using LibraryThing and the blogger community to identify candidates and asking for recommendations and help.
Keep Connected
What a joy it’s been to connect with people who are all very passionate about reading and love sharing their passion with others. I do try to comment on other people’s blogs and to reply to comments posted on my own. But I want to make a conscious effort to do this more, possibly by doing a group read or a tutored read.
Focused Flexibility
I confess that I have a butterfly mind. The minute I hear of something interesting, I want to fly off to that enticing petal even if I have 20 equally beautiful and fascinating petals already right under my nose (or should that be my antennae??). Consequently, I didn’t read as many of the Booker prize winners I imagined I would and I fell miserably behind on my Classics Club reading. So in 2013 I really must get back to reading what I already identified I wanted to read and not go down too many detours. Between the Booker List, my world reading list, the Classics Club and my ‘in person’ book club I think I’ll have more than enough to keep me occupied.
I am purposefully not setting any goal around the number of books I want to read. As I commented in my wrap up posting for 2012, it’s quality over quantity for me. If I end the year having read less than last year, then I won’t get too bothered by it.
Ok, that’s the goals set for now – all I have to do now is get on with them……