How Does The Rest Of Your 2021 Reading Year Look? (10/10/21)

[Marc]

What is the rest of your 2021 reading year looking like? Have you changed your original reading plans (added more, decreased the number of books, shifted your goals)? What's the rest of 2021 looking like for you in terms of reading?

[Luke]

I finished my classics challenges in September, so it'll be (mostly) a strategic selection of 21st century publications from here on out. Here are the possibilities: https://www.goodreads.com/review/list...

[Robert]

I had quite a life change on September 27th , which meant I had move house and my TBR stack is in a mess. At the moment my priority is finishing my review copies and the Booker longlist - one book left.

I can't mood read so I'll probably do thematic months i.e 31 books in 31 days, translated lit month etc

[Bill]

I tend not to make long-range reading plans, other than try to keep my to-read list manageable.

These are the books that I'd like to get to soon:
Eugene Lim, Search History
Jackie Ess, Darryl
Percival Everett, The Trees
Dodie Bellamy, Bee Reaved

I usually post a year-end favorites list to the Literary Horror group; as we approach Halloween, I try to squeeze in some books that might end up on that list:
Kristopher Triana, Gone to See the River Man
Richard Thomas, Spontaneous Human Combustion

[Bretnie]

I don't usually make a lot of long term reading plans, but I somehow left the used bookstore today with 5 books, so my only goal now is to read at least one or two of those soon to justify buying so many!

[Nadine in California]

Bill wrote: "I tend not to make long-range reading plans, other than try to keep my to-read list manageable.

These are the books that I'd like to get to soon:
Eugene Lim, Search History
Jackie..."

A new Eugene Lim, thanks for the tip! All I really remember about his other book, Dear Cyborgs is that it was weird and I loved it. So I just looked at my review and it reminded me why - not so much for my thoughts as for the many quotes from the book. Maybe it will encourage others to go out on a Lim (so sorry, the review isn't that bad). Review.

[Marc]

I tried a new approach with myself in 2021---buy/acquire whatever books I want with the caveat that I have to read them in the same year acquired (or else they get donated at the end of the year), so I'll probably be reading from that pile (I was doing pretty good until about a month or two ago). Life has been a bit chaotic so I'm not putting any strict reading goals or plans in place for the end of the year. Had hoped to finish Proust (which I started last year), but will realistically only finish book 6 of 7.

[Hugh]

I don’t often make rigid reading plans, but nor do I have large numbers of unread fiction books. I will be reading the rest of the Goldsmiths shortlist, and have a few books ready for group reads here and in other groups, but I could easily find that by December more books will have found their way onto the to read shelf for opportunistic reasons.

[Bill]

Nadine wrote: A new Eugene Lim, thanks for the tip!"
Good to see another Eugene Lim fan here! I really liked The Cyborgs, and also the earlier collection The Strangers.

[Bretnie]

I thought of one goal that I don't necessarily hold myself to, but every year I try to read a little more than I did the previous year. I have aspirational goals to read 100 books in a year but I haven't ever come close to that. BUT last year I read 72 books, and this year I've already read 70, so I should be able to pass my 2020 self up pretty soon.

I'd have to read 2.5 books per week to hit 100, so that definitely won't happen, but I bet I can get to 90, maybe?

[Luke]

Bretnie wrote: "I thought of one goal that I don't necessarily hold myself to, but every year I try to read a little more than I did the previous year. I have aspirational goals to read 100 books in a year but I h..."

My yearly read page count has become so consistent that, if I wanted to up the book count, I'd have to consciously focus on shorter works. As there are simply too many longer works that I'm interested in, I've settled for aiming for more sizable decreases in my book backlog, rather than increases in my reading rate.

[Hugh]

My page count and book count have set new personal records every year since I joined GR in 2014. I keep saying this has to stop, but this year will definitely continue that, not least because I am now time rich.

[RJ - Slayer of Trolls]

I have a pretty good idea what books I'll be reading over the next few months, although I sometimes make some minor changes and also add in books that one of my book clubs are reading. These are the books coming up for me in the next 2-3 months that would be most pertinent to this group:

The Angel's Game by Carlos Ruiz Zafón - prequel to The Shadow of the Wind

The Winter of the Witch by Katherine Arden - the third and final book in the trilogy started by The Bear and the Nightingale

The Broken Shore by Peter Temple

The Paper Menagerie and Other Stories by Ken Liu

This Thing of Darkness by Harry Thompson - several months too late for our group read, sorry...

I exceeded my annual reading goal of 52 this month, and I'll probably finish around 65 or 66 books, not including audiobooks or short stories.

[LindaJ^]

I have two books on Goldsmith's shortlist to knock out, hopefully in the last week of October. November will be dedicated to non-fiction, but other than the 700 plus page The Free World: Art and Thought in the Cold War by Louis Menand that resides for now on the countertop in my Maine home (which I visit once a month for a week), I have not selected the books from my appallingly large stash of unread non-fiction that I will attempt to get through. No plans for December at this time other than reading the books I've acquired to be given as holiday gifts to five children. I went a bit overboard this year, so will likely slip some in before December. As the kids get older, the books get longer!