2008, A Year in Reading: Reading Resolutions

I swiped this idea from Niall Harrison (who appears to be getting a Baroque Cycle reading group together for the spring and summer; some of you might want to get in on that)--in what ways would I like to direct my reading over the next year? Like all such lists, this one is over-ambitious and unrealistic, but it is nice to put my goals in black and white (the corresponding list of of ways in which I'd like to direct my writing over the next year, meanwhile, is depressingly vague).

1. The old standards. Read more. Make a sizable dent in my to-be-read stack. Buy less books than I read (though every time the dollar takes a plunge I have to suppress the urge to make an Amazon order).


2. The big guns. Almost inexplicably, I managed to make it all the way through 2007 without reading either Ian McDonald's Brasyl or William Gibson's Spook Country. If I hadn't managed to squeeze in The Yiddish Policemen's Union I might have had to turn in my geek credentials. But what can I say? I like paperbacks, especially now that a lot of my reading is done on buses. I do, however, plan on reading both of these books in 2008, and I may add Iain M. Banks's upcoming Matter, though there's so much Banks left unread (I haven't even gotten around to non-M Banks) that it may very well end up being deferred.


3. The classics. I think it's probably about time I read something by Willa Cather, and I'm toying with the notion of giving Anthony Trollope a try. I'd also like to read some more stuff by Elizabeth Gaskell (all the ecstatic praise for the recent Cranford miniseries has got me interested in the book, since one of the best ways to get me to read a novel is to adapt it into an interesting-looking film or mini), and for years I've been promising myself to read some of George Orwell's less famous work like Down and Out in Paris and London or Keep the Aspidistra Flying.


4. Read The Master and Margarita. It's been sitting on my desk for three or four years. It's almost universally beloved. This is getting ridiculous. Like Niall with The Baroque Cycle, I'm clearly not going to read this book unless I make a project of it, but luckily Readerville has just scheduled a month-long discussion of it for February, which gives me a target.


5. Read more nonfiction. Or, given my usual tendencies, read any nonfiction. But I've already got my eye on Hermione Lee's Edith Wharton ('read more stuff by Edith Wharton' isn't so much of a resolution as a foregone conclusion), and if certain folks keep talking up that collection of Joanna Russ's reviews I may just have to give it a look as well.


6. Read more comics. With the exception of Alison Bechdel's Fun Home, I didn't read any comics in 2007. I've stalled with both Y: The Last Man and Lucifer, and though I wasn't entranced with either I would like to know how both stories end. There's also the first volume of Buffy's season 8, not to mention several well-received standalone volumes such as Black Hole, American Born Chinese, and The Arrival.