Wednesday 16 January 2013

So much to read, so little time



I usually enjoy the cliché of making resolutions at the start of a new year; and I have to say, I’m not entirely useless at sticking to them (this could also be because I make resolutions that are vaguely worded and therefore, easy to convince myself of having kept).

This time, apart from the more personal resolutions, I have decided to make a reading list for the year. There are so many genres and regions to explore, so many authors I keep putting aside for later, authors I haven’t read enough of, classics I have forgotten or stopped reading halfway, books that I should at least try once. Also, I love making lists. So here, in all its itemized glory, is my Booket List For 2013:

Genres to read more of:
  1. Fantasy
  2. History and historical fiction (especially, but not only, about World War II, the American Civil War and subsequent Reconstruction, the Opium Wars)
  3. Sports/outdoor adventure writing
 Regions to read more from:
  1. Africa
  2. Latin America
  3. Turkey
  4. Israel
 Ambitious attempts (including second attempts):
  1. Robert Jordan’s The Wheel of Time series
  2. Terry Pratchett’s Discworld series
  3. Ulysses – James Joyce
  4. My Name Is Red and Snow – Orhan Pamuk
 Authors to try at least once:
  1. Georgette Heyer
  2. Philippa Gregory
  3. Ernest Hemingway
  4. Kazuo Ishiguro
  5. Naguib Mahfouz
 Re-reads (individual books and series) and author marathons:
  1. Vikram Seth’s A Suitable Boy
  2. Salman Rushdie – Midnight’s Children and Haroun and The Sea of Stories
  3. PG Wodehouse’s Jeeves series
  4. Alexander McCall Smith – The Sunday Philosophy Club series and/or The No. 1 Ladies’ Detective Agency series
  5. Zadie Smith
  6. Rohinton Mistry
  7. Margaret Atwood
  8. Julian Barnes
  9. Ian McEwan
  10. Chimamanda Ngozi Adichie
  11. Toni Morrison
  12. Michael Ondaatje
  13. Elif Shafak
 My year’s looking good already. Of course, since it is an ambitious list and doesn't account for my book club or the Sophie Kinsellas and Lauren Weisbergers I know I will read as soon as they hit the market, it'll definitely carry on well into 2014. So next year’s looking pretty good too.

3 comments:

  1. I have a bunch'um good sports books and plenty of mountain-climbing books if you're interested. It's how I roll :-)

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  2. That would be great - thanks! I am a complete ignoramus when it comes to sports books.

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  3. Glad to see that I am not the only one who found My name is Red and Snow ambitious. I have them on my bedside and havent managed to finish them either.

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