Saturday, January 1, 2011

It's 2011 - Happy New Year!!

So, how was it for you?  I suspect your New Year’s Eve was more fun than it was in the Falaise household.  We have been hit by seasonal illness and were all tucked up in bed very early on, although we were woken up at midnight by the London fireworks display, which we did manage to see on the TV.

Anyway, it’s a fond farewell to 2010 and a big hello to 2011.  I hope it brings you everything you wish for and that it becomes your best year to date.  As for me, I have decided to maintain my long held opposition to New Year’s resolutions.  Frankly, I’ve always been hopeless at keeping them and either go over the top, making long lists of impossible goals, or set myself such ludicrously easy targets that they really weren’t worth setting.   So, there won’t be any for me this year.

Having said that, there are a few aims I have for my reading this year.  Firstly, I want to step up the pace slightly on my 1,001 Books Challenge.  I only managed 9 in the 4 months since I started this blog, which was a pretty rubbish effort so, this year, I intend to tick off another 40 or so.

Talking of challenges, I have an exceptionally poor record there too, having participated in one and having failed to complete it.  This is even more pathetic than it appears as the target for the challenge was one I set myself!  So, I am going to try and improve on this by participating in a small number of challenges that also fit in with my overall reading plans.  These are:

  •         The 1001 Books You Must Read Before You Die Challenge hosted by Caitie at Pub Writes.  This is a bit of a cheat actually as I am already following my own goal of reading through the list.  Anyway, I shall be going for the PhD level of 16+ books.

  •          The War Through the Generations 2011 Challenge.  This year the challenge is focusing on the American Civil War.  As I received the new John Keegan history of it for Christmas, I thought this one would be interesting.

  •          The One, Two, Theme Challenge, co-hosted by Alex from The Sleepless Reader and Joanna from It's All About Me.  I was slightly hesitant about this as it is an open-ended challenge of the kind that could lure me into over-commitment and probable failure.  Nevertheless, I have chosen the themes of comic books/graphic novels, Russia, baseball, steampunk and mathematics.

  •          The Classics Circuit Tours.  This isn’t really a challenge but it is an excellent circuit for the classics.  I’ve participated in the last two, on Trollope and Meiji era literature and will be posting on Lysistrata by Aristophanes on 26 January.

My third aim is to discover a bit more about the book blogging community and to become more involved.  Having only cursorily scratched the surface so far, it appears there are all sorts of things going on out there of which I have been blissfully ignorant.

Fourthly, I intend to write some posts on some of my favourite books even if they are not part of my current reading and also to post more general posts rather than just the reviews I have been posting up to now.

Fifthly, I am going to get myself up to date on reviews over the next couple of weeks.  I still have 5 reviews to write of 2010 reads and I need to get going on them.

Finally (and most unpalatably) I am also going on a book buying detox for the next two months and will not be buying any new books (other than orders already placed to which I am committed).  A quick inspection of the TBR pile and my recent bank statements has persuaded me that this would be a good idea.

So it’s shaping up to be a busy 2011 as far as my book activities are concerned.  I’m looking forward to it.

3 comments:

Anna said...

Glad you'll be joining us for the Civil War Challenge! I've added you to the participants page on War Through the Generations.

Alex (The Sleepless Reader) said...

Welcome to the One, Two Theme!

Recommendation for baseball: Last Days of Summer by Steve Kluger.

And for mathmatics: The Curious Incident of teh Dog in the Night-time by Mark Haddon.

Enjoy your reading!

Falaise said...

Thanks Alex!