Back in the New Year of 2009, I made a set of ‘Reading Resolutions’. One of them was ‘I shall read more books published before I was born.’ So including all books read up to the beginning of December, how did I do?
Not very well actually! I managed to read a huge 90 books from the noughties with 37 of them being published this year. Those published before I was born comprise just the five at the top of the doughnut – a mere 4.5%, and of those only two were from the TBR mountain – Oh Dear! However the five were gooduns …
- Old Peter’s Russian Tales by Arthur Ransome (1916)
- The Mask of Dimitrios by Eric Ambler (1939)
- Miss Hargreaves by Frank Baker (1940)
- The Daughter of Time by Josephine Tey (1951)
- The Old Man and the Sea by Ernest Hemingway (1952)
In mitigation, I am now reading Wilkie Collins’ The Moonstone (1868). The real question is though – did I read more pre-1960 books in 2009 than in 2008? Well, no – actually I read five less! Hence your suggestions for reading more classic fiction in 2010 would be very welcome.
RESOLUTION #1 – FAILED!
I have only one word for you. Persephone.
I made a similar horrifying discovery this year when I realized that I'd read only two or three books this year that were published before I was born. The result of this discovery is that I decided I'd read a book for each decade from 1800 to 1982. That idea intrigued me and appealed to me, so I guess my suggestion is to find some specific plan of attack that sounds fun to you. I wish you luck!
Ali – It's not as if I don't have a handful of Persephone waiting for me … I'm just too contemporary at the moment!Christy – welcome! I really like your idea, but I don't do challenges – perhaps this is telling me I should start …
I suspect that if I were to break my reads down by decade, my pattern would be very similar to yours! I always vow to read more classics and then… well… here we are!
I think my pattern would be similar to yours too. I always want to read more older books, but somehow they are never front of the display at the library/bookshop and so I find I have to make an active effort to find them – somehow the newer books always seem to be jumping out at me. I hope that you are more successful in reading older books next year.
My idea wasn't a challenge – at least not in the sense that someone else created it and I adopted it. It was a challenge made by me for me. So I wasn't suggesting you had to do the same, just whatever works for you, whatever sounds appealing, but not restrictive, to you. Hope that makes sense.
Christy – I was joking! My reading resolutions were meant to be sort of personal challenges … I'm just too easy to distract from them. I am going to try harder next year to keep to my reading resolutions.Good luck with yours.Annabel
Thanks! Same to you!