The turn of the year always feels like time to take stock, and make great and ambitious plans to learn new things, read great things, and accomplish much. 2013 will be my first full year blogging at TDAC, so, planning ahead a bit, here are my reading and blogging goals for this year:
To begin, I obviously want to make progress on my two long-term reading goals. I have also committed to a GR genre fiction challenge to read 12 genre classics in 12 months for one of my GR groups. I have picked 12 books off of those two lists, from adventure to mystery to horror. I also plan to read all six of Trollope’s Chronicles of Barsetshire, starting with The Warden.
I don’t read very much non-fiction. In 2013, I want to read all three volumes of Edmund Morris’ respected Teddy Roosevelt biography.
I want to read more neglected classics written by women. I have been exploring both the Virago modern classics and the Persephone classics. Being in the U.S., the Persephones are somewhat difficult to come by, but I plan to start collecting them. There are a number of women authors – Miles Franklin, Monica Dickens, Elizabeth Von Armin, that I want to collect and read. I think that I will start with the ten Persephone Classics that are widely available through amazon. And I may just save up my coins and splurge every now and again and have them shipped to me.
I also want to read more classic mysteries, both cozy style and noir.
Short Stories: I have several short story collections that I have barely touched, including Wallace Stegner and Alice Munro. I’ll be dipping into one short story a week. By the end of the year, I’ll have read 52 of them.
The last big goal for 2013 is my Daily Dose of Dickens – I will read at least one chapter a day of my current Dickens novel, starting with David Copperfield. I hope – in this way – to finish three or four of his novels this year. Slowly.
I love the idea of daily Dickens to chip away at those huge books, especially since it taps into the serialisation aspect of the original works. And yay for more short stories! Sounds like a great plan.
I’m pretty excited about all of the excellent reading I have ahead this year!
“I want to read more neglected classics written by women”. Yay for women! Can’t wait for those reviews
I am coveting the Persephone editions – the picture in this post is a big stack of their books. I’ve just discovered them & am wishing that that they were widely carried in the U.S., but they just aren’t. There are only four or so available on amazon.
I hadn’t heard of them, but I’m glad someone took the time to create such a collection. Truth is, most women writers are neglected even in colleges and, when there is a group of professors as there is in mine, they are underrated and disregarded.
Have you ever tried Book Depository? They are based in the UK but have free worldwide shipping. If you’re starting to build your Persephone collection but don’t want to pay the Persephone overseas shipping prices (which are steep), then they are wonderful!