The new year

I feel uncertain about making resolutions for the new year, not being a resolution-making kind of person and especially having just read Bloglily's very sane post on the topic. But I do want to think about what I'd like to accomplish this year, if only to try something new. So here are some goals, but I won't beat myself up if I don't reach them. Mostly they have to do with reading, although I'll end with some cycling goals.

First of all, back in October I made a list of 13 classics I'd like to read in 2007, and I'd like to complete that list, with one change. Here's the list again, with James Boswell's Life of Johnson substituted for the Burney novel, either Camilla or Cecilia, I'd had on there originally:

1. Marcel Proust, The Guermantes Way, Sodom and Gomorrah, The Captive, The Fugitive, and Time Regained.
2. Anne Bronte, The Tenant of Wildfeld Hall.
3. James Boswell, The Life of Johnson.
4. Miguel de Cervantes, Don Quixote.
5. Virginia Woolf, The Voyage Out.
6. Virginia Woolf, The Years.
7. Thomas Mann, Buddenbrooks.
8. Gertrude Stein's Three Lives.
9. Elizabeth Gaskell, Cranford and/or Wives and Daughters.
10. Balzac's Cousin Bette.
11. William James, The Varieties of Religious Experience.
12. Thomas DeQuincy's Confessions of an Opium Eater.
13. James Hogg, Private Memoirs and Confessions of a Justified Sinner.

I'm determined to finish Don Quixote, Buddenbrooks, the Woolf novels, the William James, and the Proust novels; the others I'd really, really like to read but if I don't, that's okay. Considering my reading pace, 50-60 books a year, this list is pretty ambitious.

After that, I really don't want to get specific about what I want to read, as I like room for spontaneity. But here are a few things I'd like to do:

• Read more poetry than I did last year. As I read 2 1/2 books last year, this will mean 3 books, plus finishing up the 1/2 I have left in my current book -- Jane Kenyon's Otherwise.
• Read more plays than I did last year. As I read no plays at all last year, this will meant reading at least one. We have a copy of Angels in America around the house I might pick up. I just realized, however, that I'll be teaching a play this spring -- as yet unidentified -- and I suppose that will count. It kind of feels like cheating, though, in a weird way. If I'm reading it for work, it shouldn't count for my New Year's resolutions? That's silly.
• Read more short stories. I managed one collection (Alice Munro) and some individual stories for A Curious Singularity, so this means I'll try to read two collections and probably more individual stories for the short story blog.
  
• Read more books in translation. Last year I read 8. If I read all the books listed above, that will be 7 (Balzac, Mann, Cervantes, and 4 volumes of Proust). Any other books I read in translation I'd like to be non-European. (I'll check out Book Traveller's posts for inspiration.)
• Read one science book. I love reading science but I haven't done it lately. I have Brian Greene and Bill Bryson on my shelves; one of those will do nicely.

Okay, I'll stop there. I could on, but the fewer goals I have, the likelier I am to reach them.

Before I begin all this, however, my first order of business is to decide which blog I want to use, the Blogger one or the Wordpress one. I can make the big, life-shaping decisions almost instantly, but the little decisions take me forever.

As for cycling, I'm not sure what goals to set, as I'm really still not sure what I'm capable of. But here's an attempt:

• This past year I rode somewhere between 3,656 and 3,700 miles (depending on how far I ride today). For next year, I'd like to ride at least 4,000 miles but preferably as many as 4,500. The 3,656 number counts only outdoor rides on my road bike; I rode a few more miles on the indoor trainer and on my mountain bike, but those I can't easily count. I'm aware that when it comes to preparing to race, I should probably focus less on the number of miles I ride and more on the level of intensity with which I ride those miles, but one of the things I learned last year is that I don't have enough of an endurance base, so reaching a certain base level of miles ridden seems valuable.
  
• I'd like to ride in more races than I did last year. Last year I did 16 -- not all of them were official USCF races, but the non-official ones were just as challenging. I did 13 criteriums and 3 road races. I wimped out on a few races in May and June and then I got burnt out toward the end of the summer and stopped racing, so this coming year I'd like to complete more and stick with it longer.
• I'd like to stay with the pack longer in each race and not get dropped as often. This goal should be more specific, but I don't know how to make it so. So I'll just have to say that I'm going to train harder so I'm stronger and therefore won't be quite as easy to leave behind.
  

We'll see how I do. Chances are I'll accomplish some of these things, but other, maybe better, things will happen and the year will turn out differently than I expect.

By the numbers

I thought I'd do one more post about the past year; it occurs to me that looking at some of the numbers might be interesting and might show me something about how I read. I have never kept track of my reading quite so carefully before, so I might as well take advantage of it and analyze the information I've got.

• Books read: 56 (it might possibly go up to 57 by Sunday night, but I'm not sure, so I'll leave it at that.)
• Novels: 36
• Nonfiction: 17
  
• Poetry collections: 2 (although I'm now halfway through another one.)
  
• Short story collections: 1
• Journals/diaries (included in the nonfiction number): 2
• Books written by men: 24
  
• Books written by women: 32
  
• Books in translation: 8
• Books from the 11th century: 1 (The Tale of Genji)
  
• From the 18th century: 4
• From the 19th century: 6
• From the 20th century: 23
• From the 21st century: 22
• From the 20th or 21st century but about an earlier century: 6
• Books read for book groups (online or in-person): 7
• Nonfiction about books, reading, literature, or literary history: 9
• Travel books: 2 (Tobias Smollett and Rory Stewart)

I tried to count how many essay collections and memoirs I'd read, but I run into problems with categorization; for example, is Pankaj Mishra's An End to Suffering a memoir? A history book? A book on religion?

I have no idea what percentage of men vs. women I've read in the past; it wouldn't surprise me, though, if I usually read more men than women. But this time I read more women than men, which makes sense to me, as I felt throughout the year that I was discovering a lot of women writers I really like: Rebecca West, Anita Brookner, Muriel Spark, Elizabeth Taylor.

I see I haven't read as much from the 19th century or earlier as I thought I might -- 11 books. Maybe for next year the classics challenge I'm doing (13 books) will change that. Not all of the 13 are from the 19C or earlier, but with those and others I might increase the number. But if I add in the books I read about earlier centuries, I reach 17, which isn't too bad.

I'd like to read more books in translation. And more short story collections, and more poetry, and more travel books, and more essays, and more books on religious history, and more books on literary history, etc., etc. It's the problem Stefanie wrote about: what to do when with every new book one reads (especially history and books about books), one's to-be-read list grows? I'd like to read in many different areas, and I'd also like to read deeply in a few, but I can't do both. My list of books I'd like to read now has 167 books on it, which doesn't include the 90 books I own but haven't yet read. Yikes!

My year in books

I suppose I can resist no longer -- it's time to begin summing up my year in books. I think I'll do a couple posts on the topic and at least one on my year in cycling. But for now, here's a list of the books from 2006 I liked the best. I only read maybe 2 or 3 books published this year (some of them I'm not sure if they are this year or last), so it's by no means a guide to this year's books. It's just a list of things I liked.

• Philip Pullman's His Dark Materials trilogy. I loved these books and flew through them. I haven't read young adults books in forever, and these books made me think that's a shame. I'm certain I'll re-read them at some point when I need something fun. I found the plot absorbing, but the ideas were too.
  
• Mary Oliver's American Primitive. This is the first book of poems I picked up when I decided to try reading poetry again after years of not doing it, and I'm so glad I did. The poems are beautiful and moving, and -- if you like poems about nature that aren't sentimental (in the bad sense) or sappy, give this book a try.
• Elaine Scarry's On Beauty and Being Just. This short book inspired me to write about it on this blog so many times, I was afraid you all would get tired of hearing about it. I found it a beautiful book, as befits the title, one that I read through slowly because I wanted to stop and think about its ideas so often.
• Rebecca West's The Fountain Overflows. West captures childhood so well in this novel. The narrative voice is irresistable. It's a portrait of a troubled family, and it seems to me to describe a young girl's experience of such a family perfectly.
  
• Marcel Proust's Swann's Way. Many thanks to Stefanie for starting the Proust blog and inspiring me to tackle this book -- actually, I've tackled all of In Search of Lost Time, which I should be able to finish in 2007. Without the group blog, I may never have read this book, and I'm so glad I did.
  
• Nicholson Baker's The Mezzanine. Another one I posted about often. This novel follows the main character's thoughts as he travels up an escalator on his way back to work after his lunch hour. And that's the whole plot. It felt more essayistic to me than novelistic, complete with footnotes as it was. And it got me off on a long string of posts about footnotes.
  
• Rory Stewart's The Places in Between. I was enthralled at Stewart's sense of adventure and his bravery and his ability to write about his walk across Afghanistan. I finished this one only recently, and it's inspired me to read more contemporary travel writing, particularly books about long walks.

I could list more, probably, but as I will have read 56 or 57 books by the end of the year, listing 7 favorites seems about right, if I'm trying to focus on the ones I thought were the best. Actually, it's 9 favorite books because I counted the Pullman books separately in my year's total. As I was coming up with the list, I didn't try to pick different genres, but I'm happy to see there was variety, with some poetry and nonfiction on the list, and it makes me think I should make sure to read lots of both next year, along with tons of novels, of course.

Books, books, and more books

I've written before about not mooching more books, but I haven't kept that resolution. Surprise, surprise. How can I resist when they are free?? I know I have to mail books to other people in order to mooch books for myself, but it still feels free. I still have four points left, which means four more free books. There are lots of things that look good, but I'm trying to keep the points for books I really, really want, ones I just can't resist. I was this close to getting a copy of Elizabeth Gilbert's Eat, Pray, Love, for example, but somebody else mooched it before I could put in my request. Sigh.

But, in addition to Alberto Manguel's A Reading Diary and Edmund White's biography of Proust which I mentioned in a previous post, I recently received a Penguin Classic with some of Jane Austen's lesser-known work: Lady Susan, The Watsons, and Sanditon. Books by Jane Austen that I haven't read! What's taken me so long?

I also received just today Rebecca Solnit's A Field Guide to Getting Lost. Solnit is one of my literary heroes. I was reading her book Wanderlust a year or so ago and took it with me on a plane trip and noticed a woman in the airport watching me reading the book with some curiosity. I realized later that the woman looked suspiciously like the author photo of Solnit. I can't be sure, but it might have been her, noticing me reading her book. I wish I could have told her how inspiring I thought her book was.

And, thanks to a mention by Litlove, I have Assia Djebar's Fantasia: An Algerian Cavalcade on the way, which will do very well when I'm looking for something outside of my usual reading pattern, and also Peter Matthiessen's The Snow Leopard, which will help satisfy my interest in books about walking.

On another topic entirely -- I read Franz Kafka's story "A Hunger Artist" the other day, and I'm planning on posting about it on the short story blog A Curious Singularity, but I haven't quite had the time -- or maybe it's that I haven't had the energy and the courage? -- to write about it yet. I need to re-read it for one thing. And for another, I'm not sure what I will say. It's a great story though, wonderfully strange.

And one more random note here -- I've been trying to decide if I want to do the Winter Classics challenge, but I'm unsure. Part of the problem is time -- I want to finish up the From the Stacks challenge, and I'm not sure I'll have time to do both of these. The other is that I tend to take reading plans and challenges very seriously and if I did it, I'd probably read dutifully through the list, and I think it's better if I keep some room for spontaneity in my book choices. Challenges are fun and I like being a part of a group and they are so tempting because books plans and reading lists are fun, but I'd probably better stay away.

Thursday thirteen: re-reading

This will be a pooter-ish post, one that might get me soundly mocked. But, in the spirit of Danielle's post from yesterday and in the spirit of book-blogging solidarity, because many people think lists and reading plans and TBR piles are fun, here we go!

Inspired by another one of Danielle's posts, I'm going to try my own list of books I'd re-read. I'd like to re-read more than I do because, if the book is a good one, the second time around feels so much richer. I sometimes retain so little of what I read, and I'm afraid it's because I rush through things and don't absorb them properly. But there are so many wonderful new books out there ... anyway, here's a list of things I'd likely turn to if I got the urge to re-read.

1. Anything by Jane Austen, even though I've already re-read the novels a lot. In fact, I've read all her major novels except Northanger Abbey multiple times; I don't even know how many times. I turn to them when I want something comfortable and familiar and lengthy; they feel like an indulgence. I've also been assigned many of her books for various classes. What I haven't done is read her juvenalia, which I really must do some day.

2. The Moonstone. I'm guessing that many of the books in this list will be ones I've already read multiple times. I can be such a creature of habit. The Moonstone is wonderful fun and I never seem to tire of it; I think I've read it twice, although it's possible I've read it a third time. At any rate, I'd be happy to read it again. What I really like is the way Collins tells the same story from multiple perspectives.

3. Virginia Woolf's To the Lighthouse and/or Mrs. Dalloway. To the Lighthouse I've read at least twice; I'm not sure about Mrs. Dalloway, but I love them both.

4. A.S. Byatt's Possession. I'm not being original here -- Danielle mentioned this one too -- but it was so much fun. This is one I've read only once.

5. The Anne of Green Gables books. I've read these books who knows how many times, but I've never re-read them as an adult. It would be interesting to see if my responses to them would change.

6. Anything by George Eliot. I've already read Middlemarch and Daniel Deronda twice and Adam Bede and Silas Marner once. I read The Mill on the Floss in High School, so that's probably the one I'd choose were I to read Eliot again. What can I say -- I love the Victorian novel.

7. Crime and Punishment. I read this book during college, I think, in the summer, and was enthralled. I'd like to go back and see if I have the same intense experience.

8. The Phillip Pullman series. I read this just last spring and tore my way through them; I'd get a kick out of doing it again. This sounds like a wonderful thing to do during the holidays -- just hunker down and read fun novels really fast.

9. Philip Lopate's The Art of the Personal Essay. If I haven't read all the essays in that book, I've read most of them and they are definitely worth returning to.

10. Swann's Way. Yeah, I read it just last summer, but this is a book that rewards multiple readings and I can already see that I'm going to want to look at parts of In Search of Lost Time again.

11. Flaubert's Parrot by Julian Barnes. I love this kind of smart, quirky, unconventional novel.

12. Flannery O'Connor's short stories. She's so fascinating and odd and she's such a master of the short story, I can see myself re-reading some or all of them. Maybe her novels too, both of which I've read once each.

13. Mary Oliver's book of poems American Primitive. Poetry is an obvious thing to re-read -- it can be so complex and rich and it's short and so doesn't require a huge time commitment -- and yet I didn't think of it much as I was making this list.

I could probably think of more, but I was beginning to slow down toward the end of that list; I guess when I re-read I tend to turn to the same very small number of books, mainly Victorian or early 20C novels. I could have put Tolstoy and James on that list too.