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Looking ahead to 2014

Another year, more books to read. I'm looking forward to discover new books and authors and possibly genres in the course of 2014.

If you have followed this blog for any length of time you will know that I have a tendency to make resolutions I don't keep or enter/create ambitious and complicated challenges that I fail to fulfil. There have been some I have finished successfully, e.g. the resolution to read 50 TBR books in 2013  and the 365 short stories challenge I did a few years ago. But mostly I tend to start well and then lose interest little by little until the resolution/challenge has become a millstone around my neck and I give up.

This year I am going to take it easy. Well, fairly easy. I read 60 TBR books in 2013, 10 more than I set out to finish. Consequently, this year I am going to set out to read 60 of my TBR books in the course of the year, because I know I can do it. If I end up with fewer TBR books than I set out with, it will be a bonus.

I also plan to read at least two more books for my Brontë project. Which ones? I don't know yet, but I think I might choose one reread (i.e. Jane Eyre or Wuthering Heights) and possibly Agnes Grey, which I already read one chapter of last year.

My only other - let's call it a plan, because I don't want to call it a resolution - is to read more non-fiction. I plan to do this every year (sometimes I succeed, sometimes I don't), because I enjoy non-fiction and in fact tend to give non-fiction books higher marks than I do fiction, which would seem to indicate that I like it better than fiction. My favourite genre, travelogues, is certainly non-fiction, and so is my second favourite, popular science. I have some interesting choices lined up in both genres but I do not intend to commit to finishing any particular titles.

I was toying with a possible century reading project, covering the 73 years of the 19th century from which I have not read any books (to read more about that, click here). For that purpose I gathered together a list of possible novels and then got carried away and managed to find books for every year of the 19th century that I might like to read, and for most of the 18th century as well. Most are British or American, but there is a smattering of Icelandic, French, Italian and Russian as well.

However, I am not going to commit to anything now. I may pick out the occasional book from the list in the course of the year, because there are a lot of juicy classics on it, but I'm not going to stress myself over it. I might follow Alex in Leed's example and create a book jar with only these titles.

How about you? If you have a book blog and have posted your resolutions or reading plans for 2014, please leave a link in the comment box. I would love to see what you are planning to read.


Comments

George said…
It's not the goal, it's the journey. I enjoy your ambitious reading schedule.

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