Wednesday, January 9, 2013

Reading Resolutions

In the spirit of moving boldly forward into the new year, I’ve decided to try to tackle a few reading projects that have been on my list for a while now. I like to think of this list as a bit optimistic but do-able. You might think of it as madness. We might both be right.

My “Reading Resolutions” for 2013:

Hardcover (2005) 944 pages
This one has come pretty highly recommended to me by my mother in law (who hasn’t quite finished it yet). I think she heard an author interview on NPR around the time that Lincoln (2012) was coming out in theaters. After seeing the movie myself, I want to know more about Lincoln and his cabinet and how exactly they managed to pass the 13th Amendment.
 
Les Miserables by Victor Hugo
Signet Paperback (1987) 1,488 pages
             I’d been wanting to see Les Mis for ages. A lot of my friends who are into musicals and theater had told me that it was one show that everyone should see. So on Christmas day my fiancé and I braved the crowds to see the movie with our families.  It was spectacular and I’m so glad that I saw it (more on that in a later post). However, I’m the kind of person who loves to read the books behind the movies, so for some reason I decided that I had to read Hugo’s book, and I had to do it this year.

Paperback (2002) 832 pages
            My fiancé has been bugging me to read Hitchhiker’s for a long time, and it’s been on my reading list, I just hadn’t quite gotten around to it yet. A few weeks ago while we were at Barnes & Nobel we found a copy of the complete series for a reasonable price and split the cost. I apparently have no excuse not to read this now, and in fact I’ve already started on it.

The Lord of the Rings Trilogy:

The Fellowship of the Ring by J. R. R. Tolkien
Paperback (2012) 432 pages

The Two Towers by J. R. R. Tolkien
Paperback (2012) 352 pages

 The Return of the King by J. R. R. Tolkien
Paperback (2012) 432 pages
            Now I know these are three books, but I’m counting them as on entity on my list because I plan on getting the whole trilogy read this year. A long long time ago, way back in 2001The Fellowship of the Rings movie was coming out and my friends and I were excited to see it. But one of my friends (who shall here remain nameless) made me promise that I would read the book first. I foolishly promised and then… never got around to reading it. Here we are 12 years later, and I still haven’t read any of the books, and so I still haven’t seen any of the movies. But that’s going to change this year, I hope.

            In case you folks at home haven’t been counting, I ran up a total for you. These four little reading projects add up to a total of 4,480 pages. That’s a lot of pages… and I’m planning on reading this all in one year? You guys were right, this is madness. Oh, and this is all on top of my ever-present challenge to read all of the 1001 Books to Read Before You Die and my standing 50-books-a-year challenge.
Yeah, I’ve lost what little marbles I had to begin with. If all else fails though, it’ll be an interesting year filled with lots of wonderful books. It might be crazy, but I can’t wait to get started on my challenges. I’ll keep you guys posted on my progress and I’ll try to post reviews of more books this year (in the spirit of posting more content in general). Well, I’m off to the library, wish me luck!

1 comment:

  1. I'm cheering you on sweetie. It's a worthy and doable challenege. Good luck.

    ReplyDelete