The New Jersey bookstore Inkwood has a list of reading resolutions for 2017.
Here’s my own handful of resolutions – your mission, should you choose to accept it.
1) If an author you like has a handlea-able number of books out there and you haven’t read them all, become the completist. Find and read ALL of their work. Then write and tell them so.
2) Commit to reading at least 12 books this year – it’s ONLY one book a month and it won’t take that long . No, they don’t have to be 1000-page books (and if they are, you can make a case of that book counting for two or even three ordinary books…)
3) Be a word-spreader. if you like a book, tell other people about it. Writers will thank you for it.
4) Read at least one book in a genre you’ve never read before. You might still not find it congenial but at least you’ll know WHY.
5) Read at least one author you’ve never read before or never HEARD of before. You might hate the book (and you aren’t REQUIRED to finish) but at least you aren’t going to be reading the same handful of authors over and over again. Reading is an adventure. Get your ticket punched for a destination you’ve never ben to before.
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And speaking of lists…
I tend to ignore them myself.
I know, I know, I just offered you a list. Sue me.
I’ll admit to running through the the occasional list invoving books to see how many of them I have read.
Some lists are more esoteric than others – there are lists I can confidently say I”ve pretty much covered comprehensively and there are other lists which leave me scratching my head and wondering if I live in some alternate universe because I haven’t heard of any of those books or their “acclaimed” authors. Books lists are one of the oldest and dodgiest forms of literary criticism.
Here’s a list that’s left me interested and intrigued. It has books I’ve heard of but haven’t read yet although I’ve been meaning to (Le Guin’s “Lavinia”, for one) and it has books by authors whose names I recognise – but not from THIS book. I think I may have some catch-up reading to do…
Let down by the lists
Read more HERE
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At Off-the-Shelf, Kerry Fiallo offers us:
17 Favorite Book First Lines to start 2017
One of mine is: “All this happened, more or less.”
Another is: “Ships at a distance have every man’s wish on board.”
And then there is:
“The snow in the mountains was melting and Bunny had been dead for several weeks before we came to understand the gravity of our situation.”
From The Secret History, by Donna Tartt
Read the whole article HERE
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Quote of the Day
Note to my husband: Not in the winter you don’t!
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