Bookpile.
This isn't really a resolution. It's more of a goal. The goal is to read everything in the pile of books endlessly stacked up on the floor under the table beside my bed, and to do this in the next year. I am allowed to add to the pile all I want, but I can't remove anything from it unless I've read it straight through to the back cover. I have this habit of beginning books, losing interest, and never finishing them, which I am endeavoring to remedy.
This is an incomplete list of said books, to which I will add the errant (i.e., currently-buried-by-other-books) titles as I am able. The heavier nonfiction titles make me a little nervous, but I'm trying to be optimistic. I'm separating them into fiction/nonfiction heaps because while I am perfectly capable of reading multiple nonfiction books simultaneously (thanks, grad school!) and keep them all straight, I can only read one novel at a time.
If y'all have any thoughts on the following, I'd love to hear them.
Fiction
Graceling, Kristen Cashore (almost done with this, should finish it tonight - I'm not madly in love with it, it's entertaining enough, but based on the high praise I expected more)
American Gods, Neil Gaiman
Dicey's Song (reread), Cynthia Voight
Little, Big, John Crowley
The Astonishing Life of Octavian Nothing, Traitor to the Nation, Vol. 1: The Pox Party, M.T. Anderson
Sherlock Holmes in America, Martin Greenberg ed.
The Haunting of Hill House, Shirley Jackson
The Night Calls, David Pirie
La Perdida (half read), Jessica Abel
Nonfiction
Status Anxiety, Alain De Botton
Graphic Design for Nondesigners, Tony Seddon et al.
A Walk in the Woods, Bill Bryson
Imagined Communities: Reflections on the Origin and Spread of Nationalism (new edition; reread), Benedict Anderson
Orientalism (reread), Edward Said
The Elements of Style Illustrated (reread), Strunk & White, Maira Kalman illus.
Health at Every Size: The Surprising Truth about Your Weight, Linda Bacon
My Sister, Guard Your Veil; My Brother, Guard Your Eyes: Uncensored Iranian Voices (half read), Lila Azam Zanganeh ed.
How to Live on Mars: A Trusty Guidebook to Surviving and Thriving on the Red Planet (half read), Robert Zubrin
Reading Lolita in Tehran: A Memoir in Books, Azar Nafisi
Changes in the Land, Revised Edition: Indians, Colonists, and the Ecology of New England, William Cronon
Undertaker of the Mind: John Monro and Mad-Doctoring in Eighteenth-Century England, Jonathan Andrews
Fashionable Food: Seven Decades of Food Fads (two-thirds read), Sylvia Lovegren
The Victorian Celebration of Death, James Stevens Curl
The Vatican to Vegas: The History of Special Effects, Norman Klein
Fiction/Nonfiction Collections
Granta 73, 91, 92, 99, 100, and 105. (I'm allowing myself to pick and choose which pieces to read from these, and most of them are at least partly-read, but I'm requiring myself to go through them all thoroughly.)
Shivering Sands, Warren Ellis
This is an incomplete list of said books, to which I will add the errant (i.e., currently-buried-by-other-books) titles as I am able. The heavier nonfiction titles make me a little nervous, but I'm trying to be optimistic. I'm separating them into fiction/nonfiction heaps because while I am perfectly capable of reading multiple nonfiction books simultaneously (thanks, grad school!) and keep them all straight, I can only read one novel at a time.
If y'all have any thoughts on the following, I'd love to hear them.
Fiction
Graceling, Kristen Cashore (almost done with this, should finish it tonight - I'm not madly in love with it, it's entertaining enough, but based on the high praise I expected more)
American Gods, Neil Gaiman
Dicey's Song (reread), Cynthia Voight
Little, Big, John Crowley
The Astonishing Life of Octavian Nothing, Traitor to the Nation, Vol. 1: The Pox Party, M.T. Anderson
Sherlock Holmes in America, Martin Greenberg ed.
The Haunting of Hill House, Shirley Jackson
The Night Calls, David Pirie
La Perdida (half read), Jessica Abel
Nonfiction
Status Anxiety, Alain De Botton
Graphic Design for Nondesigners, Tony Seddon et al.
A Walk in the Woods, Bill Bryson
Imagined Communities: Reflections on the Origin and Spread of Nationalism (new edition; reread), Benedict Anderson
Orientalism (reread), Edward Said
The Elements of Style Illustrated (reread), Strunk & White, Maira Kalman illus.
Health at Every Size: The Surprising Truth about Your Weight, Linda Bacon
My Sister, Guard Your Veil; My Brother, Guard Your Eyes: Uncensored Iranian Voices (half read), Lila Azam Zanganeh ed.
How to Live on Mars: A Trusty Guidebook to Surviving and Thriving on the Red Planet (half read), Robert Zubrin
Reading Lolita in Tehran: A Memoir in Books, Azar Nafisi
Changes in the Land, Revised Edition: Indians, Colonists, and the Ecology of New England, William Cronon
Undertaker of the Mind: John Monro and Mad-Doctoring in Eighteenth-Century England, Jonathan Andrews
Fashionable Food: Seven Decades of Food Fads (two-thirds read), Sylvia Lovegren
The Victorian Celebration of Death, James Stevens Curl
The Vatican to Vegas: The History of Special Effects, Norman Klein
Fiction/Nonfiction Collections
Granta 73, 91, 92, 99, 100, and 105. (I'm allowing myself to pick and choose which pieces to read from these, and most of them are at least partly-read, but I'm requiring myself to go through them all thoroughly.)
Shivering Sands, Warren Ellis