The Year of Reading

That's a bold hope. I plan to take my reading in hand in 2018 and correct my book negligence. Christmas was so helpful! I received a pile-o'-books under the Christmas tree -- think 'Jolabokaflod,' the lovely Iclandic tradition -- so I'm all set to make a course correction this coming year.

Saltzman's Portrait of Dr. Gachet, The Strangers Gaze: Travels in County Clare,
 Sobel's Galileo's Daughter, Isacoff's Temperament

The books above are ones I bought in 2017 (three left over from last Christmas!) and did not read. I'll address them first. The books below came as a Christmas Book Flood yesterday.

Trollope's The Way We Live Now, Alexander Smith's Friends, Lovers,
Chocolate, The Lost Art of Gratitude, The Comforts of a Muddy Sunday,
John Masefield's The Box of Delights and The Midnight Folk

I'm a huge Trollope fan. I'll give away the Smith books after I've read them. The Masefield stories are lovely children's videos on youtube!

Elizabeth Goudge's The Joy of the Snow, The Little White Horse, The White Witch,
Elizabeth Von Arnim's The Solitary Summer, Elsbeth Huxley's
Gallipot Eyes, and a selection of short stories in
Home for Christmas
Lila by Marilynn Robinson is under there too.

(I also received chocolate to go with the books.) Have you Von Arnim fans heard of The Solitary Summer? I was excited to find another book by her.

These rules, found on a facebook meme (how's that for irony?) may help:

How to Read More:

1. Throw your phone in the ocean. (or keep it in airplane mode)
2. Carry a book at all times.
3. Have another book ready before you finish the one you're reading. (Make a stack of books or load your e-reader.)
4. If you aren't enjoying a book, stop reading it immediately. (Flinging it across the room provides closure.)
5. Schedule an hour a day for reading.
6. Keep a reading log and share it.

I don't just miss the act of reading; I miss who I was when I was more of a reader. The many imaginative worlds that dominated my mind as a reader expanded my own world; I feel my world has shriveled and shrunk without them. 

I won't give up real online friendships and conversations, but I must limit them, time-wise. (What happened to the life we had before, where "news" was a small 5-minute blip in your daily life, but reading was that wonderland you filled your mind with? I'm sick of 24-hour worrying news.) I love blogging and visiting blogging friends. I like a quick catch-up on facebook each morning. I know as I limit my facebook time, facebook will limit what it shows me. C'est la vie.

I may keep a better current reading log here, to hold myself accountable, and post about what I read. I must stop reading books that bore me, and pass them on. That would help! So -- what are you reading? Do you plan to read more this year? Do you have tactics to realize that goal? 

from The Tassajara Bread Book, which I bought Adam for Christmas --
thank you, Gretchen!