Bloggers Note: This post was originally intended to be
published the last Sunday in December, 2012.
Some of it reflects that.
In the upcoming year, I am undertaking several Heavy Reading
Projects for myself. Firstly I am taking
the Harvard
Classics 15 Minutes a Day Challenge, reading from the 50 Volume set
daily for at least 15 minutes. I have almost
finished Vol. 50: Introduction and Readers Guide and the supplementary book Fifteen Minutes a Day: The Reading Guide
(of which I have read all but the daily reading assignments and their brief
introductions, but have left the 49 main volumes and the book of Lectures to the Harvard Classics untouched
and will begin reading them in January, starting with Ben Franklin’s Autobiography
from Vol. 1. (My wife intends to take
the challenge with me!)
Secondly, I am beginning a yearlong close reading of The Norton Anthology of Theory and Criticism. I plan to average 7 pages a day on this work,
which will allow me to complete it in just under 1 year. I will be doing some personal reflection
writings on my readings from this and may post some of them (without a
schedule) on here in the future.
Finally, time permitting I am going to delve into Norman
Davies’ Europe: A History and The Isles: A History. I have had the books for over a decade and
while I have read bits and pieces of both, I have not attempted a serious
reading of either of these dense tomes.
3 pages a day would complete one in a year, or 6 pages both. As I go through my reading of them I hope to
whittle them down to less than half a year each, but with my other two reading
projects above and the light reading I’ll discuss below, I am not sure how much
time I will want to dedicate to these two monstrous volumes.
On more fun notes, my light reading selections for the year
begin with the King himself. I am
currently sitting between Dark Tower
volumes IV and V. And while I want to
finish King’s magnum opus, there are several tie-in books I feel I should read
first: It, From a Buick 8, and Talisman to
name but three.
My friends have also recommended a number of Geeky novels
and series I should try out, including the Gor
series by John Norman and the Song of Ice
and Fire by George R.R. Martin, of which I’ve read the first book A Game of Thrones. So I’d like to get and read the next book in
the latter and the first book in the former.
There are, of course, numberous other books I have on my
to-read list with Tolkien’s The Hobbit,
Wells’s War of the Worlds (and Invisible Man which I started some time
ago and never finished), Del Toro and Hogan’s The Strain, and Goldman’s The
Princess Bride all topping the list.
So that’s what I plan on reading this year.
What is on your 2013 Reading List?
Leave a response in the comments below or on my twitter page @nerdisnewcool.
Nerd Is the New Cool, signing off.
Update- I received the first four volumes of Song of Ice and Fire for Christmas from my wife so should be able to start on them soon. I also received from her Your Movie Sucks by Roger Ebert which I am currently reading. I am also working on Cloud Atlas, which I started reading several years ago in college. I have restarted it and hope to actually finish it this time.
I have so far not managed to keep up with any of my three main projects. I am a dozen or so pages into the Norton Anthology, have only read from the Harvard Classics twice, and haven’t started Europe: A History. Likewise, I have not kept my Journal up either. But I hope to do some catching up in the weeks to come and get on my actual intended schedule soon.
-Nerd
