what i'm reading: 2024 wrap-up

My 2023 reading plan turned out to be perfect for me, so I renewed it for 2024, and will keep it for 2025, too.

For more on why I'm now using a reading plan (what most people call a reading challenge), scroll down on this post.  

Here's what I read in 2024. 

At least five current (within three years) nonfiction ✅

I loved all the current nonfictions, and most of the older nonfictions, I read this year.

Prequel: An American Fight Against Fascism, Rachel Maddow (review)

Doppelganger: A Trip into the Mirror World, Naomi Klein (review)

How the Word Is Passed: A Reckoning with the History of Slavery Across America, Clint Smith (review)

Ducks, Kate Beaton

I Heard Her Call My Name: A Memoir of Transition, Lucy Sante

Path Lit by Lightning: The Life of Jim Thorpe, David Maraniss (review)

The Turnaway Study: Ten Years, a Thousand Women, and the Consequences of Having -- or Being Denied -- an Abortion, Diana Greene Foster

At least five older nonfiction from my Books Universe ✅

Operation Paperclip: The Secret Intelligence Program that Brought Nazi Scientists to America (2014), Annie Jacobsen (review)

The Red Parts: Autobiography of a Trial (2007), Maggie Nelson (review)

Bob Dylan: Behind the Shades Revisited (2001), Clinton Heylin

War Against War: The American Fight for Peace 1914-1918 (2017), Michael Kazin

Wolf: A True Story of Survival and Obsession in the West (2017), Nate Blakeslee (review)

Utopia Drive: A Road Trip Through America’s Most Radical Idea (2016), Erik Reece

Illness as Metaphor (1978); AIDS and its Metaphors (1988), Susan Sontag

Vanishing New York: How a Great City Lost Its Soul, Jeremiah Moss
How to Kill a City: Gentrification, Inequality, and the Fight for the Neighborhood, P.E. Moskowitz
Gentrification of the Mind: Witness to a Lost Imagination, Sarah Schulman (combined review)

At least ten fiction ✅, including at least two from authors I have not previously read and have been curious about. This year's new: Ursula Le Guin, Elena Ferrante, Kevin Wilson, James Ellroy. ✅

I don't usually write about fiction, so the absence of a review is not a reflection of my enjoyment of the book. On this list below, there are only two books I didn't enjoy and didn't finish. 

Julia, Sandra Newman (review)

Sing Her Down, Ivy Pochoda

 

The Eden Test, Adam Sternbergh

All The Sinners Bleed, S. A. Cosby

A Tale for the Time Being, Ruth Ozeki

Now Is Not the Time to Panic, Kevin Wilson (enjoyed this enough to read another book by this author)

Nothing to See Here, Kevin Wilson

Demon Copperhead, Barbara Kingsolver

Against the Loveless World, Susan Abulhawa

Plan A, Deb Caletti (YA)

King Nyx, Kirsten Bakis (the author of Lives of the Monster Dogs returns at last!)

The Black Dahlia (Book 1 of The L.A. Quartet), James Ellroy (I am planning to read all four.)

The Stolen Coast, Dyer Murphy

James, Percival Everett (retelling of Huckleberry Finn) (review)

My Brilliant Friend (Book 1 of Neapolitan Novels), Elena Ferrante (Amazingly, I will be reading all four of these, too.) 

The Story of a New Name (Book 2, Neapolitan Novels), Elena Ferrante

The Dispossessed, Ursula Le Guin

Advance one long-term goal ✅ 

Down and Out in Paris and London, George Orwell (Goal: read everything Orwell published)

Read one massive book in installments ✅

Visions of Jazz, Gary Giddins (still reading!)

Also read

Several children's graphic novels

A small sampling of legal thrillers and spy thrillers by famous authors, none of which I liked

Reports (or summaries of reports) published by: the Canadian Centre for Policy Alternatives, Dying With Dignity Canada, BC Health Coalition, Amnesty International, Canadians for Justice and Peace in the Middle East, Athena Coalition (Amazon workers), RAVEN (Indigenous environmental action), and SAFE Supporting Abortions for Everyone

A large (digital) pile of feature-length articles and opinion pieces from The Atlantic, The New York Times, Vox, and other more occasional sources, which I save and track through Chrome's Reading List feature

what i'm reading: 2023 wrap-up, a reading plan for 2024, and why i now create reading plans

I've finally figured out this reading plan thing. A list that will guide me but not overwhelm me. A way to make sure I read at least a few old titles that have been languishing on my Books Universe list for ages. A list that will keep me obsessively reading, but not obsessed with the list itself.

Here are the results of my 2023 reading plan.

Five current (within three years) nonfiction ✅

Empire of Pain: The Secret History of the Sackler Family (2021), Patrick Radden Keefe (review)

The Invisible Kingdom: Reimagining Chronic Illness (2022), Meghan O'Rourke (review)

Madame Restell: the Life, Death and Resurrection of Old New York's Most Fabulous, Fearless, and Independent Abortionist (2023), Jennifer Wright (review)

The Story of Jane: The Legendary Underground Feminist Abortion Service (2022), Laura Kaplan (review)

Galileo and the Science Deniers (2020), Mario Livio (review to follow)

An Immense World: How Animal Senses Reveal the Hidden Realms Around Us (2022), Ed Yong (currently reading; review to follow)

Five older nonfiction from my Books Universe ✅

How to Change Your Mind: What the New Science of Psychedelics Teaches Us About Consciousness, Dying, Addiction, Depression, and Transcendence (2018), Michael Pollan 

Bread and Roses: Mills, Migrants, and the Struggle for the American Dream (2006), Bruce  Watson (review)

Sea People: The Puzzle of Polynesia (2019), Christina Thompson (review)

Delusions of Gender: How Our Minds, Society, and Neurosexism Create Difference (2010), Cordelia Fine (review)

Raising Expectations (and Raising Hell): My Decade Fighting for the Labor Movement (2014), Jane McAlevey and Bob Ostertag

Ten fiction ✅, including five (total) from authors I have not previously read: Margaret Laurence ✅, Donna Tartt ✅.

This year most of the fiction I read was for the Labour Book Club I was leading through my union. The reading wasn't particularly satisfying, but I loved LBC, so on balance that was a win. 

Of the list of authors I hadn't read but want to sample, five turned out to be too many. But I did read two of them, and in previous years read another two or three, so that is slowly happening. 

Here's the fiction I did read.

The Goldfinch, Donna Tartt (loved, recommend highly)

Crook Manifesto, Colson Whitehead (loved, recommend highly -- of course!)

My Notorious Life, Kate Manning (review)

Shuggie Bain, Douglas Stuart (review)

Young Mungo, Douglas Stuart (loved, recommend highly)

In Dubious Battle, John Steinbeck (LBC) (had read before, a very long time ago)

God’s Bits of Wood, Ousmane Sembène (LBC) (review)

In the Skin of a Lion, Michael Ondaatje (LBC) (had read before; a very good book)

The Stone Angel, Margaret Laurence (second time I've tried to read this)

The Cold Millions, Jess Walter (LBC) (had read before)

The Last Ballad, Wiley Cash (LBC) (had read before)

For the Win, Cory Doctorow (LBC) (review)

Gilded Mountain, Kate Manning (LBC)

Advance one ongoing goal ✅✅ 

Completed weekly installments of Gotham: A History of New York City to 1898 (whoo-hoo!)

Returned to Taylor Branch's America in the King Years trilogy, and finished the final third of the final book, At Canaan's Edge, abandoned in 2007

My 2024 Plan will separate this goal into two: "advance one ongoing goal" and "one massive book to be read in weekly installments".

Also read

A First Time for Everything, Dan Santat (excellent children's graphic novel) (review)

The Secret Pocket, Peggy Janicki (children's, indigenous, excellent) (review)

Many feature-length stories in The Atlantic, The New York Times, Harpers, The Guardian, Vox, The New Yorker, and elsewhere, saved and tracked through "Reading List" on Chrome

Why do I have a reading plan? 

Sometime in the late 2000s, I realized I was spending less time reading. Or, more accurately, I was spending too much time reading a whole lot of nothing -- scrolling, reading headlines, a paragraph here and there. It was very unsatisfying, and was contributing to feelings of disconnection, lack of focus, and general dissatisfaction. I had all but lost the deep reading that I love, and have done all my life.

With this realization, I began a gradual lessening of time spent on social media, less time consuming news, and more time reading books. The more I did this, the better I felt. 

This is not only because I love and value reading. The larger issue is being intentional about how I use my time. Time is our most valuable resource. Time is our only non-renewable resource. I don't want to waste it -- and by waste, I mean using non-work time in unsatisfying ways. We're all familiar with frittering away time and not knowing where it went. That's what I'm striving to avoid.

I've always been a bit obsessive about how I use my time. I never take on a new project without first figuring out how I will prioritize it in my life, what I will reduce or move in order to fit in the new thing. The internet and social media had fractured that, and I wanted to reclaim it. 

The Attention Merchants by Tim Wu was enormously helpful for this. By the time I read Digital Minimalism by Cal Newport, it was clarifying and articulating what I already knew. If this is something you're looking for, I recommend reading both these books.

So in keeping with all of this, a reading plan has helped me focus my reading, and be more intentional with my reading time.

a reading plan for 2023

This year's reading plan is more open-ended -- designed to give me focus but not overwhelm. I've created what most people seem to call a reading challenge, but that term doesn't work for me. So here's the plan.

** Five current (within 3 years) nonfiction

** Five older nonfiction from The List

** Ten fiction, including five (total) from this list of authors I have not read: Octavia Butler, Ursula K. Le Guin, Naguib Mahfouz, Margaret Laurence, Helen Oyeyemi, Donna Tartt

** Advance one ongoing goal, choose from: one Dickens (four to finish), one Orwell (three to finish), finish King Trilogy (two-thirds of final book remaining)

** Continue weekly NYC history installments

I will also be leading a labour book club with my union. This is something I've wanted to do for a long time, and it's taken quite a bit of maneuvering to make it happen. If anyone actually signs up, I’ll be reading for this as well. 

what i'm reading: 2022 wrap-up

The results of my 2022 reading plan were completely predictable. I created an overly long list, and that created pressure, and that ruined the point and the enjoyment of the plan. I knew that would happen, and it did: I wrote about that here. 

I started feeling this self-inflicted pressure in May. In August, I released myself from the plan. 

Yes, I had to give myself permission to not follow an arbitrary rule that I invented. Good to know I'm still me. Ha! But also good to know I've learned a few things: I did eventually drop the plan. Take that, old self! 

Big win: serializing the doorstoppers

My biggest win this year was my New York City history project. In 2018, I started reading weekly chapters of the mammoth Gotham: A History of New York City to 1898 by Edwin G. Burrows and Mike Wallace, intending to read both that title and the equally humongous follow-up, Greater Gotham: A History of New York City from 1898 to 1919 in weekly installments. When we started preparing to move to BC, I let that go, but I very much wanted to return to it. And this year, I did! 

I discovered that my first go-round went further than I thought; I had read a good 8 or 10 chapters. But for continuity and enjoyment, I re-started from the beginning, and read one chapter (or occasionally, a half-chapter) every week, unless I was away. (1,400-page books don't travel well.) 

I am thoroughly enjoying it, and will definitely read both books, and will write about them eventually. I may attack two other titles the same way: London: The Biography (2000) and Dickens: Public Life and Private Passion (2001). Both are somewhat intimidating to me, and coincidentally, both are by Peter Ackroyd. (How the hell can anyone be so prolific?)

Still reading, still planning

I did enjoy having a reading plan in 2019, 2020, and 2021: something to focus and guide me, but not a to-read list, which feels mandatory. I'm thinking about how to create a workable reading plan for 2023.

One thing is certain: I read a shit-ton this year. And these lists don't even count all the feature-length articles that I save through Chrome's Reading List feature and actually read later, plus countless book reviews. Reading more -- deep reading, as opposed to scrolling through headlines or reading the first paragraph of a story -- has been an ongoing life goal of mine, and I'm very pleased that I'm always working on it.

Here's what I read in 2022, both from the plan and off-plan.

Important note: I didn't necessarily finish every book listed below. I have no problem sampling a title, realizing it's not for me, and moving on. This is especially true with fiction. 

If you're curious about a title that I didn't review, please ask me in comments.

From the 2022 reading plan

Nonfiction

Men Explain Things to Me and The Mother of All Questions, Rebecca Solnit essay collections (ongoing)

The Uninhabitable Earth: Life After Warming, David Wallace-Wells (review)

A Primate's Memoir, Robert Sapolsky

Four Lost Cities: A Secret History of the Urban Age, Annalee Newitz (review)

Say Nothing: A True Story of Murder and Memory in Northern Ireland, Patrick Radden Keefe (review)

The Turning Point: A Year That Changed Dickens and the World, Robert Douglas-Fairhurst (review)

Killers of the Flower Moon: The Osage Murders and the Birth of the FBI, David Grann (review)

Animal, Vegetable, Junk: A History of Food, from Sustainable to Suicidal, Mark Bittman (review)

Nine Nasty Words: English in the Gutter: Then, Now, and Always, John McWhorter (review)

Four Fish: the Future of the Last Wild Food, Paul Greenberg (review)

The Doctors Blackwell: How Two Pioneering Sisters Brought Medicine to Women and Women to Medicine, Janice P. Nimura

Gods of the Upper Air: How a Circle of Renegade Anthropologists Reinvented Race, Sex, and Gender in the Twentieth Century, Charles King (review)

Natural Causes: An Epidemic of Wellness, the Certainty of Dying, and Killing Ourselves to Live Longer, Barbara Ehrenreich

Fiction

Charlie Savage, Roddy Doyle

Girl, Woman, Other, Bernardine Evaristo

Razorblade Tears, S. A. Cosby

The Electric Hotel, Dominic Smith

Marley, Jon Clinch

Christine Falls, John Banville as Benjamin Black

Gods with a Little G, Tupelo Hassmann

Simon the Fiddler, Paulette Jiles

The Weight of Ink, Rachel Kadish

The Night Watchman, Louise Erdrich (review)

Children's

Gone to the Woods: Surviving a Lost Childhood, Gary Paulsen (review)

The Leak, Kate Reed Perry (review)

Kaleidoscope, Brian Selznick

Pumpkinheads, Rainbow Rowell 

Series 

As I started the next book in each of these, I remembered why I don't enjoy series, and stopped reading both.

Harlem Detective series, Chester Himes

John le Carré re-reads

Long-term goal

I am doing this!!

Weekly chapters of Gotham: A History of New York City to 1898 and Greater Gotham: A History of New York City from 1898 to 1919.

Off-plan

Here's what I read after I ditched the plan. The same caveat applies: I didn't finish all of these.

Nonfiction

21 Things You May Not Know About the Indian Act: Helping Canadians Make Reconciliation with Indigenous Peoples a Reality, Bob Joseph (Will review; should be mandatory for all Canadians.)

Indigenous Relations: Insights, Tips & Suggestions to Make Reconciliation a Reality, Bob Joseph with Cynthia F. Joseph (in progress; reading for work)

The Noble Hustle, Colson Whitehead

It’s Time for Socialism, Thomas Piketty (I read very little of this. It wasn't what I was looking for.)

Rin Tin Tin, Susan Orlean

Krakatoa: the Day the World Exploded, Simon Winchester (review)

Fiction

The Flamethrowers, Rachel Kushner

Celestial Bodies, Jokha Alharthi

The Sentence, Louise Erdrich

The Violin Conspiracy, Brendan Slocum (really enjoyed this; review to follow)

YA

A Year to the Day, Robin Benway

Like Other Girls, Britta Lundin (review)

Important bonus

This beautiful book was a birthday present from my partner. I'm reading it off and on, in random sections.  

in which i remember the pitfalls of creating rules, or, painting myself into a corner (again)

In our last episode of Laura's Reading Plan, I posted a very long list for 2022. On that 2022 reading plan post, I wrote:

This year's plan is much longer. This is probably a bad idea.

I also wrote: 

One thing is obvious: this plan is too long! I hope I can use it without feeling defeated, because I can't narrow it down any further right now.

Well, I called it. The overly long reading plan has become a problem in ways that are very recognizable to me, if not downright predictable. ("Problem" in the #firstworldproblems sense of the word.)

* * * *

To review:

May 2017: a list of authors and titles that keep appearing on The List* but which I haven't read.

December 2017: sub-lists of The List: a more focused to-read list, which led to. . . 

January 2019: my first reading plan.

March 2020: extending the reading plan for a second year; reading plan, part two.

September 2020: reading plan, part three. This worked less well, because it was a little too vague. That led to...

January 2021: reading plan for 2021. This worked beautifully. It was motivating, and I enjoyed the focus, the way having a plan drew me from one book to the next. I also read off-plan, and that was fine, too. 

When something works, why not do more of it? Bzzzt! Mistake. Which brings me to. . . 

* * * * 

January 2022: a reading plan for 2022, plus how the 2021 plan fared

As I said above, I called it.

I felt pressured. Felt like I had to read faster, read more, and worst of all, read exclusively from the plan. As in, I'm not "allowed" to read a book that's not on the plan. 

This is ridiculous. Why take something that is pure pleasure and a great passion, and turn it into a pressured obligation? 

Why indeed. Although it's been a while since I did this, I am all too familiar with this pattern. I create a rule -- my own rule -- then feel pressured to adhere to it, and feel I have failed if I don't. In my 20s I called it painting myself into a corner. Well here I am, in my freaking 60s, at it again! 

The ludicrous nature of this inflexibility became crystalline when I thought, It's time to finally read Thomas Piketty! Then immediately thought, But he's not on the plan. Can I do that? 

"Can I do that?" Well, of course I can! It's entirely up to me! Why do I need permission?

With that thought, I hereby release myself from the plan becoming An Obligation. The plan must go back to being a guide, an idea, a focus -- but not An Obligation, and certainly not A Rule.

* * * 

This is what I've read so far on the 2022 reading plan.

I did not finish every book that is crossed off, especially the fiction. That's not a reflection of the book; it's a my own personal threshold for when I do or don't continue reading a book. I'm always glad to try a book and know something about it, even if I don't finish it, both as a reader and as a librarian. Reading is never wasted time.

Nonfiction

A Mind Spread Out on the Ground, Alicia Elliott

Men Explain Things to Me and The Mother of All Questions, Rebecca Solnit essay collections

The Uninhabitable Earth: Life After Warming, David Wallace-Wells (review)

A Primate's Memoir, Robert Sapolsky

Say Nothing: A True Story of Murder and Memory in Northern Ireland, Patrick Radden Keefe (review)

The Other Slavery: The Uncovered Story of Indian Enslavement in America, Andrés Reséndez

Four Lost Cities: A Secret History of the Urban Age, Annalee Newitz (review)

Killers of the Flower Moon: The Osage Murders and the Birth of the FBI, David Grann (just finished, review to follow)

The Turning Point: 1851: A Year That Changed Charles Dickens and The World, Robert Douglas Fairhurst (review)

Animal, Vegetable, Junk: A History of Food, from Sustainable to Suicidal, Mark Bittman (review)

Galileo and the Science Deniers, Mario Livio

Nine Nasty Words: English in the Gutter: Then, Now, and Always, John McWhorter

Four Fish: the Future of the Last Wild Food, Paul Greenberg (review to follow)

The Doctors Blackwell: How Two Pioneering Sisters Brought Medicine to Women and Women to Medicine, Janice P. Nimura

Hate: Why We Should Resist It with Free Speech, Not Censorship, Nadine Strossen

Permanent Record, Edward Snowden

Bob Dylan: Behind The Shades Revisited, Clinton Heylin

The Trials of Nina McCall: Sex, Surveillance, and the Decades-Long Government Plan to Imprison "Promiscuous" Women, Scott W. Stern 

Made in China: A Prisoner, an SOS Letter, and the Hidden Cost of America's Cheap Goods, Amelia Pang

Gods of the Upper Air: How a Circle of Renegade Anthropologists Reinvented Race, Sex, and Gender in the Twentieth Century, Charles King

The Escape Artist, Helen Fremont

The Last Job: "The Bad Grandpas" and the Hatton Garden Heist, Dan Bilefsky

Republic of Detours: How the New Deal Paid Broke Writers to Rediscover America, Scott Borchert

Natural Causes: An Epidemic of Wellness, the Certainty of Dying, and Killing Ourselves to Live Longer, Barbara Ehrenreich

Fiction 

Charlie Savage, Roddy Doyle

The Resisters, Gish Jen

Girl, Woman, Other, Bernardine Evaristo

Razorblade Tears, S. A. Cosby

Marley, Jon Clinch

Christine Falls, John Banville as Benjamin Black

Stay and Fight, Madeline ffitch

Gods With A Little G, Tupelo Hassmann

The Memory Police, Yoko Ogawa

The Electric Hotel, Dominic Smith

Against the Loveless World, Susan Abulhawa

Simon the Fiddler, Paulette Jiles

Station Eleven, Emily St. John Mandel

Moon of the Crusted Snow, Waubgeshig Rice

Damnation Spring, Ash Davidson

The Other Black Girl, Zakiya Dalila Harris

The Weight of Ink, Rachel Kadish

The Goldfinch, Donna Tartt

The Night Watchman, Louise Erdrich

The Stone Angel, Margaret Laurence

YA

One of Us is Next, Karen M. McManus

Children's

Gone to the Woods: Surviving a Lost Childhood, Gary Paulsen (review)

The Leak, Kate Reed Perry

Kaleidoscope, Brian Selznick

Pumpkinheads, Rainbow Rowell 

Look Both Ways: A Tale Told in Ten Blocks, Jason Reynolds

To give my brain a break (I let both of these go. I am just not interested in reading series.)

Harlem Detective series, Chester Himes

John le Carré re-reads

Long-term goal (I am doing this! Loving it! Post to follow, eventually.)

Weekly chapters of Gotham: A History of New York City to 1898 (Edwin G. Burrows and Mike Wallace) and Greater Gotham: A History of New York City from 1898 to 1919 (Mike Wallace).

I still want to use an annual reading plan. I enjoyed it in 2020 and 2021, so I'll continue, but with less of it, and without obligation.

-----

* The universe of books I might read; the central list. The place to go for "what to read next" but not a To Read list.

a reading plan for 2022, plus how the 2021 plan fared

I'm enjoying my new-ish habit of having a reading plan for the year ahead. I like having the structure and the direction. But I also like -- and need -- to keep it flexible. It's not a reading challenge. No x number of books for the year, no goal at all. I can (and do) read any book I want whether or not it's part of the plan. I'm also not tracking my reading that's not off-plan, although if I really like a book I'll probably write about it. 

So how did the 2021 plan go? Pretty great! The plan is below, with my current comments in italics. The nonfiction is all reviewed on this blog; the fiction is only reviewed if I liked it (with the exception of literary thrillers or literary crime, and the occasional series, which I don't review).

Nonfiction

Ghosts of Gold Mountain: the Epic Story of the Chinese Who Built the Transcontinental Railroad, Gordon Chang 

Sometimes You Have to Lie: The Life and Times of Louise Fitzhugh, Renegade Author of Harriet the Spy, Leslie Brody

The Sword and the Shield: the Revolutionary Lives of Malcolm X and Martin Luther King Jr., Peniel E. Joseph

Janis: Her Life and Her Music, Holly George-Warren

Poisoner In Chief: Sidney Gottlieb and the CIA Search for Mind Control, Stephen Kinzer 

A Mind Spread Out on the Ground, Alicia Elliott

Mad at the World: A Life of John Steinbeck, William Souder

Men Explain Things to Me, Rebecca Solnit Read a few essays, will continue.

The Skin We're In: A Year of Black Resistance and Power, Desmond Cole

The Heartbeat of Wounded Knee: Native America from 1890 to the Present, David Treuer

The Uninhabitable Earth: Life After Warming, David Wallace-Wells

Digital Minimalism: Choosing a Focused Life in a Noisy World, Cal Newport

Fiction 

Charlie Savage, Roddy Doyle

Gilead, Marilynne Robinson Read in part, not continuing with trilogy.

The Cold Millions: A Novel, Jess Walter

There There, Tommy Orange

The Resisters, Gish Jen

True Story: A Novel, Kate Reed Perry

Blacktop Wasteland: A Novel, S. A. Cosby Loved!

Girl, Woman, Other, Bernardine Evaristo

The Stone Angel, Margaret Laurence 

YA

The Bridge, Bill Konigsberg

Sia Martinez and the Moonlit Beginning of Everything, Raquel Vasquez Gilliland

Children's

A List of Things That Will Not Change, Rebecca Stead (miscategorized as YA)

Continuing to read more by: I did not read more by any of these authors, but I did pick up books by all of them at Powell's in Portland.

Frans de Waal

Carl Safina

Robert Sapolsky

Giving my brain a break between nonfictions

Martin Beck, Per Wahlöö and Maj Sjöwall Read nine of ten, probably should have stopped after seven.

Parker, Donald Westlake as Richard Stark

Long-term goals I did none of these! And two other long-term goals aren't even on this list. Perhaps I should choose one long-term reading goal for the year.

Orwell still to read: three titles

Dickens still to read: four titles

Re-start weekly chapters of Gotham: A History of New York City to 1898 and Greater Gotham: A History of New York City from 1898 to 1919. (Project started in 2018 but abandoned later that year.)

This year's plan is much longer. This is probably a bad idea.

Nonfiction

A Mind Spread Out on the Ground, Alicia Elliott

Men Explain Things to Me and The Mother of All Questions, Rebecca Solnit essay collections

The Uninhabitable Earth: Life After Warming, David Wallace-Wells

A Primate's Memoir, Robert Sapolsky

The Other Slavery: The Uncovered Story of Indian Enslavement in America, Andrés Reséndez

Four Lost Cities: A Secret History of the Urban Age, Annalee Newitz

Say Nothing: A True Story of Murder and Memory in Northern Ireland, Patrick Radden Keefe

The Turning Point: A Year That Changed Dickens and the World, Robert Douglas-Fairhurst 

Killers of the Flower Moon: The Osage Murders and the Birth of the FBI, David Grann

Animal, Vegetable, Junk: A History of Food, from Sustainable to Suicidal, Mark Bittman

Galileo and the Science Deniers, Mario Livio

Nine Nasty Words: English in the Gutter: Then, Now, and Always, John McWhorter

Four Fish: the Future of the Last Wild Food, Paul Greenberg

The Doctors Blackwell: How Two Pioneering Sisters Brought Medicine to Women and Women to Medicine, Janice P. Nimura

Hate: Why We Should Resist It with Free Speech, Not Censorship, Nadine Strossen

Permanent Record, Edward Snowden

Bob Dylan: Behind The Shades Revisited, Clinton Heylin

The Trials of Nina McCall: Sex, Surveillance, and the Decades-Long Government Plan to Imprison "Promiscuous" Women, Scott W. Stern 

Made in China: A Prisoner, an SOS Letter, and the Hidden Cost of America's Cheap Goods, Amelia Pang

Gods of the Upper Air: How a Circle of Renegade Anthropologists Reinvented Race, Sex, and Gender in the Twentieth Century, Charles King

The Escape Artist, Helen Fremont

The Last Job: "The Bad Grandpas" and the Hatton Garden Heist, Dan Bilefsky

Republic of Detours: How the New Deal Paid Broke Writers to Rediscover America, Scott Borchert

Natural Causes: An Epidemic of Wellness, the Certainty of Dying, and Killing Ourselves to Live Longer, Barbara Ehrenreich

Fiction (will likely try many of these without reading... or so I think)

Charlie Savage, Roddy Doyle

The Resisters, Gish Jen

Girl, Woman, Other, Bernardine Evaristo

Razorblade Tears, S. A. Cosby

Marley, Jon Clinch

Christine Falls, John Banville as Benjamin Black

Stay and Fight, Madeline ffitch

Gods With A Little G, Tupelo Hassmann

The Memory Police, Yoko Ogawa

The Electric Hotel, Dominic Smith

Against the Loveless World, Susan Abulhawa

Simon the Fiddler, Paulette Jiles

Station Eleven, Emily St. John Mandel

Moon of the Crusted Snow, Waubgeshig Rice

Damnation Spring, Ash Davidson

The Other Black Girl, Zakiya Dalila Harris

The Weight of Ink, Rachel Kadish

The Goldfinch, Donna Tartt

The Night Watchman, Louise Erdrich (I've read all her early books, but have not read her recently)

YA

One of Us is Next, Karen M. McManus

Children's

Gone to the Woods: Surviving a Lost Childhood, Gary Paulsen

The Leak, Kate Reed Perry

Kaleidoscope, Brian Selznick

Pumpkinheads, Rainbow Rowell 

Look Both Ways: A Tale Told in Ten Blocks, Jason Reynolds

To give my brain a break

Harlem Detective series, Chester Himes (Have read two of eight.)

John le Carré re-reads (Read one this year... so good!)

Long-term goal

Weekly chapters of Gotham: A History of New York City to 1898 and Greater Gotham: A History of New York City from 1898 to 1919. (Project started in 2018 but abandoned later that year.)

* * * *

One thing is obvious: this plan is too long! I hope I can use it without feeling defeated, because I can't narrow it down any further right now.

a reading plan for 2021: big stacks of nonfiction, plus some fiction, and series for mind breaks

2018: Titles and reading projects that were languishing on my List.

2019: The year of the biography. The first time I created a reading plan for the year.

2020: I liked having the 2019 plan, and created a new plan for 2020.

In each case, I read many titles from the plan, and many off-plan -- enough that I feel I've accomplished part of a goal, but not so much that the goal became a chore. 

For 2021, I consulted The List, and selected sub-lists of nonfiction, fiction, and YA. Add to that the authors I want to read or read more of (from the 2018 list), plus the long-term goals that may or may not advance. 

Recently I made a brilliant discovery: I enjoy reading on the treadmill! I use a treadmill for exercise in bad weather or if for some other reason I don't want to outside. In the past I've always listened to music while walking to nowhere. A few weeks ago I tried reading, just as an experiment, and found that I love it. This new habit has made it possible to increase time spent on two of my life goals at the same time. Amazing!

Nonfiction

Ghosts of Gold Mountain: the Epic Story of the Chinese Who Built the Transcontinental Railroad, Gordon Chang (reading now)

Sometimes You Have to Lie: The Life and Times of Louise Fitzhugh, Renegade Author of Harriet the Spy, Leslie Brody (A surprise gift from Allan.)

The Sword and the Shield: the Revolutionary Lives of Malcolm X and Martin Luther King Jr., Peniel E. Joseph

Janis: Her Life and Her Music, Holly George-Warren (I read biographies of Janis Joplin as a teenager; this new book sounds fantastic.)

Poisoner In Chief: Sidney Gottlieb and the CIA Search for Mind Control, Stephen Kinzer (Ever since reading Kinzer's Overthrow, I am interested in almost anything he writes.)

A Mind Spread Out on the Ground, Alicia Elliott

Mad at the World: A Life of John Steinbeck, William Souder

Men Explain Things to Me, Rebecca Solnit (Working my way through these amazing essays.) 

The Skin We're In: A Year of Black Resistance and Power, Desmond Cole

The Heartbeat of Wounded Knee: Native America from 1890 to the Present, David Treuer

The Uninhabitable Earth: Life After Warming, David Wallace-Wells

Digital Minimalism: Choosing a Focused Life in a Noisy World, Cal Newport

Fiction 

Charlie Savage, Roddy Doyle (One I've missed by a favourite author.)

Gilead, Marilynne Robinson (Author I've been meaning to read; first of a trilogy.)

The Cold Millions: A Novel, Jess Walter

There There, Tommy Orange

The Resisters, Gish Jen

True Story: A Novel, Kate Reed Perry

Blacktop Wasteland: A Novel, S. A. Cosby

Girl, Woman, Other, Bernardine Evaristo

The Stone Angel, Margaret Laurence (I will try again to read this Canadian classic.)

YA

The Bridge, Bill Konigsberg

Sia Martinez and the Moonlit Beginning of Everything, Raquel Vasquez Gilliland

A List of Things That Will Not Change, Rebecca Stead

Continuing to read more by:

Frans de Waal

Carl Safina

Robert Sapolsky

Giving my brain a break between nonfictions:

Martin Beck, Per Wahlöö and Maj Sjöwall

Parker, Donald Westlake as Richard Stark

Long-term goals

Orwell still to read: three titles

Dickens still to read: four titles

Re-start weekly chapters of Gotham: A History of New York City to 1898 and Greater Gotham: A History of New York City from 1898 to 1919. (Project started in 2018 but abandoned later that year.)

what i'm reading: a new plan

As I've mentioned many times, I keep a running List of books. The List dates back to the mid-1980s. 

It's not a complete list of books I've read. I wish I kept track of every book I read, but because I didn't start this at the Beginning of Time, I can never start it. 

The List is also not a to-read list. If it were, I would be too overwhelmed to read a single word. 

The List is all the books I hear of or read about that sound interesting and attractive to me. The List is the universe of books that I turn to when looking for what to read next. 

Books from the List comprise about half my reading -- meaning, I read many books that aren't on the List. This bothers me in ways I cannot begin to explain. I work hard to free myself from All Or Nothing thinking, but it pops up in all areas of my life. 

[Strangely, for someone whose default setting is All Or Nothing, I don't care about reading series. I often read the first book in a series, and then, whether I liked it or not, don't go any further. I can explain this... but it would make this silly, boring post even sillier and more boring.]

Recently I've been pulling smaller reading plans out of The List. I'm enjoying having a reading plan, albeit a flexible one where I also read many books that are not part of the plan. I'm obsessed with crossing things off lists, and since the massive List is too long to approach that way, these plans give me a sense of accomplishment. 

I'm aware that is all a bit ridiculous. It's just how my mind works.

I've done pretty well on this subset of The List, from this 2017 post.

Three biographies I want to read
Jackie Robinson: A Biography -- Arnold Rampersad (review)
Prairie Fires: The American Dreams of Laura Ingalls Wilder -- Caroline Fraser (review)
Helen Keller: A Life -- Dorothy Herrmann (not reviewing)

Three people I want to read biographies of but don't know which one to read
Muhammad Ali (review)
Bob Dylan
Galileo (not reviewing)

Now I'm going to turn my attention to this bit.

Six writers whose books keep appearing on my list but I haven't read yet (there are many more)
Frans De Waal
Carl Safina
Robert Sapolsky
Margaret Laurence
Colm Toibin
Helen Oyeyemi

Three write nonfiction, three write fiction. I'm aiming for a minimum of two books per author, although not consecutively. 

But first, new Roddy Doyle, and more labour history and organizing.

a reading plan for 2020: the (second) year of the biography plus... more?

On the final day of 2017, I wrote a short list of people and topics I wanted to know more about, authors I wanted to sample but somehow never did, and unfinished reading challenges: what i haven't read and what i'm not reading (again, a post that had a fair number of comments... still hoping to restore them).**

From there, I dubbed 2019 The Year of the Biography (just for my personal reading, of course). I ended up reading three massive tomes on the lives of Frederick Douglass, Jackie Robinson, and Muhammad Ali.

I also read three graphic biographies: the graphic adaptation of Anne Frank: Diary of a Young Girl (which I hope to write about), and biographies of Muhammad Ali and Emma Goldman.

These weren't the only books I read in 2019, but they dominated my reading time.

Social distancing and the absence of library books inspired me to purchase three more biographies, and continue the trend for 2020: Prairie Fires: The American Dreams of Laura Ingalls Wilder by Caroline Fraser, Helen Keller: A Life by Dorothy Hermann, and Galileo: Watcher of the Skies by David Wootton.

Only after ordering these did I realize they were all included in that 2017 "what i haven't read" post. To that end, I'm also finally going to finish Taylor Branch's King Trilogy (I stopped halfway through the final book) and Siegfried Sassoon's Sherston Trilogy. (Thank you, social distancing!)

I'd also like to get back to my weekly chapters of Gotham: A History of New York City to 1898 and Greater Gotham: A History of New York City from 1898 which got left behind when we decided to move west. This, however, might be too many balls in the air.

Taking the advice of a dear friend, I am allowing myself to give up on my elusive Shakespeare project, begun in 2003 and abandoned in 2005, but still nagging me more than a decade later.

** This is not The List. The List is ridiculously long. The List is not so much a to-read list, as a place to consult when thinking about what I might want to read next.

a reading plan for 2019: the year of the biography?

A new biography of Frederick Douglass has gotten glowing reviews, and as Douglass is one of my great heroes -- one of the greatest Americans -- I definitely want to read it.

This made me realize how many biographies I've been putting on The List and not reading. The one that's been on The List, unread, longest is Arnold Rampersad's biography of Jackie Robinson. Rampersad was the first biographer to have full access to Robinson's letters and other papers, as well as Rachel Robinson's approval and cooperation. It came out in 1998, and I'm reading it now.

Others on The List:
Peter Ackroyd's Dickens (1990) -- at more than 1,000 pages, this one is intimidating
Orwell: A Life, Bernard Crick (1992)
Helen Keller: A Life, Dorothy Hermann (1998)
Galileo, Watcher of the Skies, David Wootton (2013)
Ali: A Life, Jonathan Eig (2017)
Prairie Fires: The American Dreams of Laura Ingalls Wilder, Caroline Fraser (2017)

So I'm thinking, for my own reading, maybe this is the Year of the Biography. In between the bios, I would read other books as palate cleansers. I'm working my way through a mystery series -- very unusual for me to read an entire series, but I'm really enjoying Henning Mankell's Wallender books. Those will be great in between big fat biographies, plus there are always random titles I pick up at the library.

Will it all get boring? I'm going to try it -- with the understanding that I can drop it if I want. Also that it might take more than one year. That's all right, as I plan to be alive and reading next year, too.

I noticed we last chatted about my reading plans here. Readers had some very good advice... that I'm still working on.

what i'm reading: what i haven't read and am not reading

Many of my co-workers keep colourful lists like this,
or use Goodreads or Shelfari to track their reading.
I prefer plain old text.

Like most avid readers, my to-read list contains far more titles than I could ever read in a lifetime, even if I did nothing but read. Although I add books at a considerably faster rate than I tick them off, I do still keep The List, and I consult it when I'm looking for my next book. I do this with movies, too.

I also read books not on my list, much more so now that I work in a library, and my reading tastes have broadened. But I don't keep a list of all the books I've read.

This really bothers me. It has bothered me for a very long time. But at no time did I ever start keeping a list of All The Books I Read, because... I didn't start it a long time ago, so it will always be incomplete, so there's no point in starting it, ever. I know this is not rational, I know it's part of All Or Nothing thinking, which I work at avoiding, but... I can't shake the belief.

In library work we are urged to "track our reading," because it's supposed to help us be better readers' advisors. I question whether this is true. Most library workers don't consult their own reading lists when helping customers find reading material. But whether or not this is a useful practice, I don't do it.

I do keep track of movies and series that I watch. I've done this since the late 90s, and for some reason the incompleteness of this list doesn't bother me.

So, here are some book lists, sub-lists of The List.

Three biographies I want to read
Jackie Robinson: A Biography -- Arnold Rampersad*
Prairie Fires: The American Dreams of Laura Ingalls Wilder -- Caroline Fraser
Helen Keller: A Life -- Dorothy Herrmann

Three people I want to read biographies of but don't know which one to read
Muhammad Ali
Bob Dylan
Galileo

Five books that I want to read but am daunted by because they are so long
This is a stupid category for someone who has read The Power Broker, Bleak House, and City on Fire. Nevertheless.
London: The Biography -- Peter Ackcroyd
Dickens -- Peter Ackcroyd*
Gotham: A History of New York City to 1898 -- Edwin G. Burrows,‎ Mike Wallace**
Greater Gotham: A History of New York City from 1898 to 1919 -- Mike Wallace
Jackie Robinson: A Biography -- Arnold Rampersad*

Three books I didn't finish but am determined to get back to one day
At Canaan's Edge: America in the King Years, 1965-68 -- Taylor Branch (This is the third book in Branch's "America in the King Years," and an almost impenetrable read. But I read the first and second books, and half the third. Must finish.)
The Sherston Trilogy -- Siegfried Sassoon
Postwar: A History of Europe Since 1945 -- Tony Judt (also fits under previous category)

Six writers whose books keep appearing on my list but I haven't read yet (there are many more)
Frans De Waal
Carl Safina
Robert Sapolsky
Margaret Laurence
Colm Toibin
Helen Oyeyemi

Three topics I would like to read more about
Utopian communities
Confidence games, grifters, and hoaxes
Language -- acquisition by children, origins of, ASL, Esperanto...other stuff

Orwell still to read
A Clergyman's Daughter
Coming Up for Air
Collected Letters

Dickens still to read
The Pickwick Papers
The Old Curiosity Shop
Barnaby Rudge
The Mystery of Edwin Drood

The Shakespeare Project
In 2003, I decided to read or re-read all of Shakespeare's plays. I re-read all my favourites, then got totally bogged down. Here's a real test of All or Nothing. Even though I haven't read a Shakespeare play in more than a decade, the goal still nags me. I want to drop it! Can I???
Comedy of Errors
Love's Labour's Lost
Merry Wives of Windsor
Henry VI, Part I
Henry VI, Part II
Henry VI, Part III
King John
Pericles
Antony and Cleopatra
Coriolanus
Timon of Athens
Titus Andronicus
Troilus and Cressida

----
* We own this in hardcover.
** We own this in hardcover and we acquired it by trading a box of used books for a new copy of this.

authors i keep wanting to read but don't

My book list is extremely long, so long that I don't call it a reading list or a to-read list, because I will never read even half the books on the List. It's more like books I would read. A list to narrow down the universe of books to a smaller universe of books to choose from.

Working in a library has increased the likelihood that I won't read even a majority of these books -- or decreased the percentage that I will read. Where I used to stick faithfully to my List, I now read lots of books not on the List -- books colleagues or customers talk about, and more often, books on display. Being a librarian has broadened my reading, which I love. It has made the List less a goal and more a general guide. This is fine.

Recently I noticed that certain authors appear on the List more than once, but remain unread. These are sometimes nonfiction titles that become hard to find. I'm clearly interested in the author's topics, but by the time I am ready to read the title, it's gone. I could find the book online, I'm sure, but I just move on to another title. There are many novelists on the List, too.

I don't delete anything from the List. It's a running list I've been keeping since 1985. That is either impressive or insane, depending on your point of view. I have a system for marking what I have read, and another marking for books I own but have not read. (There is much less of that in recent years, another result of librarianship.)

I have read so many books not on the List, and it bothers me that I didn't add them, but I can't change the method now. I could, but I can't. (In the library, we are told to "track our reading" in order to be better readers' advisors. I don't find this useful, so I don't do it. Please don't tell.)

I thought of this -- the authors that keep appearing but don't get read -- because I just started a book by John McWhorter, who teaches linguistics and writes about language. I noticed that many titles by McWhorter are on my List, and decided it was time to read one.

So. (I have just been reading about the word "so".) Here are authors who are on my List who I haven't read.

Frans de Waal
Carl Safina
Ann Douglas (this Ann Douglas)
Ann-Marie MacDonald (who I never heard of before coming to Canada)
Yxta Maya Murray
David Ebershoff
Trezza Azzopardi
Robert M. Sapolsky
Sally Denton
Kiran Desai
Ivan Doig
Edwidge Danticat
Mario Vargas Llosa
Siri Hustvedt
Margaret Laurence
Colm Toibin
Ted Conover
Helen Oyeyemi
Paul Greenberg
Barry Unsworth
Sarah Waters

This list does not represent all the authors on the List -- not even close. Only those I have never read who appear more than once.