Happy New Year! As we welcome in 2014 I thought that now would be the ideal time to take stock of my reading and look at what I hope to achieve for the oncoming twelve months.
This year I managed to get into a bit of a muddle over my reading habits, in particular, how I read. I started to listen to one book in audio, read another as an e-book and another in paper. In theory I thought that having three books on the go, in different formats, would be nice as I could jump around and take advantage of any spare reading time.
Instead the result was a muddled mess. I read three books very slowly, often dragging them out, when I could have been finishing a single book much more quickly. No more! Instead I shall continue to listen to audiobooks on my daily commute but stick to only one other, either paper or electronic, and commit to it.
That brings me to what I read. As a book reviewer, it is very easy to get distracted by the new and the shiny. We are offered many books in advance of their publication and while that is nice, I haven’t placed too much on it. You can easily become a bit ‘grabby’, asking for books in advance of their release but never getting round to reading or reviewing it.
This year I want to alternate between the old and the new. Continue to read the newer titles, perhaps discovering some new gems and different, exciting voices, while also tackling the large to-be-read pile that is accumulating with older titles. Over Christmas I’ve enjoyed reading some older Carlos Ruiz Zafron and some Sherlock Holmes and I’d like to continue that and tackle some more older titles from my favourite authors.
So there we have it – read more sensibly and read the old and the new. Let’s see how I get on! Have you got any New Year Reading Resolutions you’d like to share?
I did way too many reading challenges last year, and as a result found myself reading a large amount of short(er) books. My reading resolution for 2014 is to read some of the chunkier books on my shelves: ‘The Luminaries’, ‘The Betrothed’ by Alessandro Manzoni, ‘Jonathan Strange & Mr Norrell’ and ‘Kushiel’s Dart’ by Jacqueline Carey (I have most of the series – I should probably read the first one before I buy anymore…)
Funny you say that, I’ve actually started the year with a reading challenge! I’ve also got The Luminaries and Jonathan Strange on my reading list as well, so hopefully with these resolutions to be more organised, I’ll manage them! – Rob