Category: Reflections

What are Your Reading Goals for 2018?

scrabble-resolutions

It’s that time of year again, where people are making resolutions and breaking resolutions. I tend to be more interested in and successful at book-related resolutions, which are more fun than regular resolutions, anyway.

For me, I have a few random literary resolutions this year. I always hesitate to pre-plan my reading too much because, quite frankly, I flit from one interest to another fairly quickly, so I know I am just setting myself up to fail if I have an overly rigid agenda of what I want to read for even a couple of months, let alone an entire year. But I have developed three that I think are achievable.

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Literary Eats

porridge

Now, here’s some food for thought. Literally!

Do you plan your cooking around your reading? Do you plan your reading around your eating? Or do they never correlate in your mind?

I must confess, it isn’t something I thought a lot about until I recently was catching up with Elise Bishop, one of my former college professors/bosses. She’s a regular blog reader, and when I told her I was always open to blog post idea suggestions, she told me I ought to write about the connection between literature and food. Thanks for the great suggestion, Mrs. B.!

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My Year in Reading

What was your year in reading like?

I know a lot of my bookish friends tend to describe their year in reading by how many books they read — and I do that too — but that still doesn’t say much about your year in reading, like what you were actually reading in those 10, 25, 50, 75, 100, etc. books you read over the course of 2016.

And, so to that end, I thought I’d recap my year in reading –a lot of which did not end up on the blog — and you could share your year in reading in the comments.

Note: not all of the books I mention are available in the library, but we can certainly try to get them for you through ILL if you’re interested!

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2016 Library Challenge: A Book with a Bad Review

bad-review-smiley-face

DO NOT READ THIS BOOK!

Worst thing I have ever read.

This book stinks!

Ever read any of these on an Amazon review? Ever intentionally sought out books with bad reviews?  Now’s your chance since one of the challenges in the 2016 Library Challenge is to do just that – read a book with a bad review.

I must confess, this challenge probably amused me the most of any of the ones on this list when I first read it at the beginning of this year.

Because, really, how hard is it to find a book with bad reviews?

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2016 Library Challenge:A Book Based Entirely on Its Cover

blank-book-cover

They say never judge a book by its cover, but let’s be honest: we all judge books by their cover, don’t we?

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2016 Library Challenge: A Book You Own But Have Not Read

books

Do you practice tsondoku?

You know, the practice of acquiring books and then leaving them unread, usually in piles, so they at least can keep each other company?

No?

Well, you might have a little harder time finding a book for this challenge. . . .

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2016 Library Challenge: A Banned Book

 

banned-books-week

As someone who has been an avid reader since childhood, I’ve always found one of the most nightmarish scenarios in literature the one that Ray Bradbury presents in Fahrenheit 451 where all books are banned.

To that end, September 25-October 1 is Banned Books Week, which makes it the perfect time to cross that requirement of reading a banned book off your library challenges list.

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2016 Library Challenge: A Book Translated From A Different Language

Stack of dictionaries

Can you read in more than one language? Not just basic sentences or even short paragraphs–could you sit down and read a book written entirely in another language?

If you’re anything like me, then your answer is going to be a resounding no. I took a couple of foreign languages in college and occasionally even can recognize words from those languages when they pop up on a movie or on the internet. But there’s no way I could read anything that wasn’t in English, which sadly limits my reading knowledge to publications originally written in the language or those someone has taken the time to translate.

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2016 Library Challenge: A Book Based on a True Story

August 2016--Based on True Story

“Based on a True Story” – words that stop you in your tracks or make you want to run?

If you, like me, think those words on the cover of a book are magical, how do you feel if a few days or weeks later, you learn that, though it is based on a true story, the author has taken a bit of creative license with his or her book? Are you okay with the author making changes? Or is that a deal breaker for you as a reader?

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2016 Library Challenge: A Book at the Bottom of Your To-Read List

I’m going to veer away from my usual routine here, so please humor me.

When I had to pick a book from the bottom of my to-read list, I wasn’t quite sure where to even start. I mean, my to-read list on Goodreads currently has 128 books on it, and that’s not even counting the books I want to read but haven’t added.

I ended up deciding to read Agatha Christie’s 1920 debut novel The Mysterious Affair at Styles. I love Agatha Christie mysteries–the twisting and, at times, convoluted plots; the witty characters; the atmosphere. I’ve read roughly 40 of her books over the years, but I realized that I’d never read much of her early work, including her very first book. So, I read The Mysterious Affair at Styles and also 4 of her 5 next books–The Murder on the Links, The Man in the Brown Suit, Poirot Investigates, and The Secret at Chimneys–within a couple of weeks.

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