Blazing a Book Trail

Happy New Year one and all!!!

Looking back over the previous reading year, I’m left rather unfulfilled. My goal this year was to read all of the books on my TBR shelf with authors’ names A through C. This led to some rather disappointing reads. Or maybe they were just disappointing because I was forcing myself to read them, rather than because of any genuine interest I had to read those particular books this past year. Book club picks which took up another huge chunk of my reading time were also hit and miss, though some of my favourite books of the year came via book club choices. These were A Thousand Splendid Sons, The Book of Negros and Rush Home Road, both I still highly recommend if you haven’t already read them. I was also in class for both Winter and Fall semesters this year, which took away precious hours of my pleasure reading time, and somewhere in the summer months I got an uncontrollable urge to re-read some past favourites, and while that was time well spent, I didn’t get very far with my reading goal.

Let’s recap, shall we? My one and only reading goal for 2012 was to read the entire TBR A - C shelf. While I made good effort through the first half of the year and cleared off about a third of the shelf, somewhere around July my enthusiasm for this project severely waned. Add to that new acquisitions in the A – C author category, and that shelf is as full if not more so then this time last year. Oy!

So looking forward into 2013, with the hopes of reading more enjoyable books than I did last year, what will my reading resolutions be?

Well first, I’d like to commit to only taking the following out of the public library:

a) Book club picks

b) James Patterson Alex Cross books (cause I’m still trying to finish the series)

c) J.D. Robb and Elizabeth Lowell new releases (cause they’ve been my favourite authors for too long to remember, and I can’t give up an old habit yet!)

d) Books I currently have checked out or on hold (but not on my for later shelf)

e) And anything else that should be on this list but can’t think of right now

The rest of my pleasure reading will have to come from my TBR Bookcase. Hopefully I can whittle it down somewhat this year.

Oh, now I was going to make 2013 the year of revisiting beloved books, but I think just re-reading, when I have all those new books still to read would be far too overly indulgent, and would leave me guilt ridden, so I will re-read as the feeling takes me, but otherwise tackle those TBRs as much as I possibly can!

Till next time, happy reading!