Drop Everything and Write

In Books Up To My Ears…

Books. Piles of them everywhere.  I’m not doing so well with one of my New Years’ resolutions which was to tackle my bookshelves and read some books that I haven’t gotten to yet this year.  Instead, I keep receiving new ones and placing them in highly organized piles and ordered by when I’m going to get to them.  

I like what I’m reading though.  I’m really trying to broaden my reading this year, and finding things I like, and confirming the things I don’t like. (ex. Stephen King.  ’Salem’s Lot scared me and I didn’t sleep for like a week and didn’t like being in a room by myself. Confirmation: I can’t read Stephen King. At least not his scary stuff.)

So anyway, here’s what I collected and/or gathered over the past month…my pile #2 that I will slowly get to:

 Gone With the Wind by Margaret Mitchell (my 3rd attempt at reading this book.  I’m really going to get through it this year!!)

Paradise by Judith McNaught

The Catcher In The Rye by J.D. Salinger (a reread)

Plantation by Dorothea Benton Frank

Great Expectations by Charles Dickens (a reread)

The Tiger’s Wife by Tea Obreht

A Moveable Feast by Ernest Hemingway

Rough Crossings: The Slaves, The British, and the American Revolution by Simon Schama

The Art of Fielding by Chad Harbach

Drop Everything and READ

Happy 2012!!  I am happy it’s here.  Whatever it is about a new year, I embrace it.  I love the fresh start.  The first day of the entire year.  All that lays before me.  I love it.

I wish I could sit here and say this is the year I’m going to finish the next great novel.  The truth is, I do not feel a speck of desire to write.  Sometimes I sit at the computer and open up my writing files, and I just sit and stare at the screen for twenty minutes and then move along to whatever I need to do next.  This season of life is just not conducive to writing.  

What I am charged about is reading.  There is so much to read.  I peeked at my bookshelves in December and realized that most of the shelf is full of books I’ve not touched yet.  I bought them, then placed them on a shelf.  So I’m resolving to tackle my bookshelf!  I also have a growing list of reads that have been recommended to me, or I’ve read reviews of and decided I must read that book for my life to be complete.  I have authors that I’m curious about, classics I’ve never even opened, and genres I’ve never touched but am very curious about.   

On my list to be  tackled first:

‘Salem’s Lot by Stephen King

Wurthering Heights by Emily Bronte

Sullivan’s Island by Dorothea Benton Frank

Alice Adams by Booth Tarkington

Darcy’s Voyage by Kara Louise

The Hunger Games by Suzanne Collins

Onaedo: The Blacksmith’s Daughter by Ngozi Achebe

The Great Gatsby by F. Scott Fitzgerald

Jeweled by Anya Bast

The Forsyte Saga by John Galsworthy

Not pictured:

Wicked Lovely by Melissa Marr

Dead To The World by Charlaine Harris

A Handful of Time by Kit Pearson

At Hidden Falls by Barbara Freethy

In addition to the books listed above, I plan on reading two books as part of a “group read” which is reading an assigned part of the book and then discussing the book with others at various intervals.  The two books I plan to tackle for the group reads are Homer’s The Illiad and Haruki Murakami’s Norwegian Wood.

With some of these books, I plan to delve into worlds unknown to me…and NOT something I would normally choose. Some, like I said, have been on my “To Be Read” list far too long.  Some I read eons ago and want to revisit.  Some, I have no idea what to expect.  We’ll just go with it and see.  

Ambitious, I know.  My reading goals each year usually are.  I don’t know how long it will take me to get through these many…I’m not the fastest reader.  But I do plan to make reading one of my priorities this year, so maybe that alone will help me to through my lists faster.