2017 Reading Goals/Intentions/Feeble Wishes

[Extollager]

Here's a place to broadcast to the world your goals for reading in 2017.

I intend to read Dickens's Dombey and Son, having read which I will have read all of Dickens's novels at least once (since I expect to finish my current reading of The Pickwick Papers today or tomorrow). I mean to read Legutko's The Demon in Democracy, and Barzun's From Dawn to Decadence, which was brought to my attention here at Chrons by MWagner. I would like to have read Gertrude Himmelfarb's Darwin and the Darwinian Revolution and Svetlana Alexievich's Secondhand Time by the end of 2017.

I expect to read a decent amount of fantasy and science fiction, but don't have particular books in mind.

 

[hitmouse]

No plans apart from the fact that I picked up a pile of orange Penguin Wodehouse last week, so I will chug through those. Whilst on the orange Penguins I might reread the Kai Lung stories, and have another go at James Branch Cabell. I feel I havent really given him a fair go.

 

[Stuart Suffel]

Well Im greatly looking forward to 2017 (assuming Trump hasn't pushed the red button). I had a story accpted for an Anthology (out next May) which I extremely happy about, as it has vindicated a new approach in my writing - a risky approach, but an approach I wish to continue with. So now I'll start writing in a way that I want to, and should have, a long time ago. In short, I'm all fired up for 2017, and feel it will be the start of my true writing.

 

[nixie]

My reading goals are Dickens,Arthur Conan Doyle and Agatha Christie.

2016 was to read Gulliver's travels, Dracula and Frankenstein didn't manage Frankenstein.

 

[Paul_C]

My plan is a continuation of what brought me here, reading the books I've acquired (45 plus one on the way (Epiphany of the Long Sun)), buying more as and when finances and enthusiasm allow and adding authors and books to the list if they look interesting.

 

[J-Sun]

This year I feebly wish to read the over-half stack of books left from the stack I feebly wished to read last year.

(If I do that, I think I'll treat myself to an extended Asimov re-read.)

I also intend to read a lot of webzines. And my Analog issues.

 

[Vince W]

First goal is not to purchase any more books until I've gotten through a good portion of the ones I already own. Yeah, I hear you laughing at me.

 

[Brian G Turner]

My reading goal for 2017 is to take things a bit easier - this year I read 51 books, which included 37 novels from every major literary genre. Am going to push less next year.

 

[Extollager]

2016 was to read Gulliver's travels, Dracula and Frankenstein didn't manage Frankenstein.

For what my opinion's worth, I'd say that if you had to miss reading one of those three, you chose the right one to miss! I love Gulliver's Travels, have read Dracula twice with enjoyment, and remember Frankenstein as a rather weepy book.

 

[Bick]

I have a good few old (1940's - 1970's) classic SF magazines, i.e. Astounding, Galaxy, If, Nebula Magazine, etc. I hope (plan) to read quite a few of these next year.

Otherwise I plan to read lots of what I fancy and not to feel too guilty about what I do or don't read.

 

[biodroid]

I dont set myself any goals therefore I wont be disappointed when I dont reach them. I would like to get through 5 to 8 books a year but most likely 5, I am a slow reader, and my tastes change a lot during the year.

 

[Bick]

I read slowly myself, but I like to read an hour or two everyday, and I find that means I usually end up reading about a book a week (or about 50 books a year). I'm always amazed when I hear about people who read about 5 books a week.

 

[Extollager]

I have a good few old (1940's - 1970's) classic SF magazines, i.e. Astounding, Galaxy, If, Nebula Magazine, etc. I hope (plan) to read quite a few of these next year.

Perhaps you'll comment here at Chrons on your findings. I take it that the best magazine stories from that period did, usually, get reprinted -- indeed that many of the less good stories also were reprinted eventually. Occasionally, though, some notable things must have been overlooked. In his essay "On Science Fiction," C. S. Lewis mentioned Marc Brandel's "Cast the First Shadow," which appeared in Fantasy and Science Fiction April 1955 and has, so far as I know, never been reprinted. (I don't remember that it was a great story, but it's interesting that Lewis remembered it to speak of it in a short paper, and yet the only way, so far as I know, that one can read it is to get it as printed that once.) Two pages later, btw, you have Anthony Boucher reviewing The Fellowship of the Ring. That would have been the first time many a science fiction and fantasy reader had heard of the first volume of LotR. Boucher: It "may well be the major achievement of the year or even of the decade"!

 

[Bick]

I'm sure I will comment, Extollager - Chrons has turned me into someone who can't read the printing on a cereal box without posting a pithy critique!

 

[Extollager]

First goal is not to purchase any more books until I've gotten through a good portion of the ones I already own. Yeah, I hear you laughing at me.

Who else, besides Vince and me, wants to buy fewer books in 2017?

And again -- who else has some reading goals for the new year to share?

 

[Bick]

Who else, besides Vince and me, wants to buy fewer books in 2017?

No, I want to buy even more. Whether I should is another matter. My constraints are only twofold: physical shelf space and SWMBO.

 

[Rodders]

Since i got my iPAD i've stopped reading completely and just play games. It's quite pathetic.

So, my 2017 resolution is to get back into reading.

 

[kythe]

I've been reading a lot of classics, but I've also picked up some more recently published books I want to read. My to-read list this year includes:

Miss Peregrine's Home for Peculiar Children - Ransom Riggs
Horns - Joe Hill
Chronicles of Empire: Gathering - Brian Turner

I just noticed all these are fantasy, a difference from the sci fi I usually lean toward.

 

[The Big Peat]

My goal is to start reading your minds

 

[Vince W]

Who else, besides Vince and me, wants to buy fewer books in 2017?

And again -- who else has some reading goals for the new year to share?

No, I want to buy even more. Whether I should is another matter. My constraints are only twofold: physical shelf space and SWMBO.

I've already come up with a loophole in my reading plan. Gifts and gift-cards. If I don't actually pay for the books then I've stuck to my plan. Right?