Reading plans for 2020?

[Brian G Turner]

As well as my ancient history course reading I have a load of archaeology and environmental/earth science books I want to get through. So it will probably be a slim year for reading fiction again for me this year.

However, I may have to take a break with a little David Gemmell or Lee Child later in the year - or any of the mass of books I still have on my To Be Read pile.

Anyone else have any idea what they'll be reading through this year?

 

[Overread]

I don't generally have a years reading plan - however as of late I've been going through more of the Black Library Warhammer Old World and Age of Sigmar stories as they tickle my "adventuring" itch. So there's a good chance that I'll work through more of those novels and short stories. I've also a pile of Inferno Magazine reprints that I want to get through (which is more of the same though with the odd short comic strip and such thrown in).


After that I'd like to try and finish up a few comic series - though my read of some of the old Conan Comics has hit a problem because Black Horse sold the rights back to Marvel; but Marvel is only republishing them in their original colours (done back in the day when comic colours were insanely random); whilst Dark horse had had them all re-done. I'd got around half way before the changeover so I imght have to start hunting for secondhand physical editions of the DH stuff to finish it off.

 

[Vince W]

Well, I haven't read much fantasy in the last few years and I'm thinking I need to get back to reading some more. This would include Wheel of Time, some Warhammer, and some other books I've picked up. I'm sure this will go off the rails rapidly.

 

[Rodders]

I’d like to finish the series that I’m currently reading. In 2019 I promised that I’d finish The Expanse series. I got side tracked by the Repairman Jack books by F. Paul Wilson as they were a part of his Adversary Cycle. I am currently reading book 7 of the Expanse and I have heard that it’s planned to be a ten book series, so hopefully the final part will be released in 2020.

I also want to finish John Scalzi’s Old Man’s War series.

Neal Asher’s Line Wars would finish his Agent Cormac series and then on to The Warship and The Human to finish his Rise Of The Jain series.

I also want to reread Iain M. Banks’s The Player Of Games. It’s my favourite book and I haven’t read it for a long time.

Outside of that, I‘m conscious that there are many classic authors that I haven’t read. Maybe start to catch up with some of those. Perhaps Flowers for Algenon, the Death of Grass and I Am Legend to start with.

 

[Wyrmlord]

I'd like to attempt the following books this year, most of which are part of series:

* Wheel of Time (continue if I like the first one)

* The Expanse

* Pillars of the Earth (just the first one, which I've read is all I'd need)

 

[Extollager]

I intend to keep on with my exploration of 16th- and 17th-century literature, history, biography, etc.

I’d like to read one of the books on hand recommended by a mentor of mine, who’s now in his mid-80s. One possibility is Austin Farrer’s A Rebirth of Images, a study of the symbol-world of the Book of Revelation.

I expect to read a couple or so of Phyllis Paul’s Gothic-y novels. Probably one of them will be a rereading of The Lion of Cooling Bay, and the other a first reading of An Invisible Darkness.

Likely I’ll reread one of Charles Williams’s supernatural-type novels, perhaps this time Many Dimensions.

I’d like to read at least one anthology-type book by Walter de la Mare.

I’d like to read Henry VIII and The Two Noble Kinsmen, completing my reading of the Shakespeare plays, but I might reread others instead. I’m interested in the late works: The Winter’s Tale and The Tempest, which I feel that I know fairly well, and Pericles and Cymbeline.

I don’t have specific plans for sf reading, but have plenty of old stuff by Simak, Brunner, &c on hand.

I bet I will read some more things that I first read about 50 years ago, as I recently did with a few Lin Carter books (his Tolkien and Lovecraft books and his Young Magicians anthology) and a book by Jack Vance.

 

[hitmouse]

Apart from the continual stream of sf, some contemporary, but mainly the pulps that happen to turn up in the local used book stores, I plan to continue to explore contemporary English language Bengali fiction. This has been a great discovery in 2019,and I plan to go back to the marvellous city of Calcutta in 2020 where I will pick up another suitcase full of books.

 

[Bick]

At least 1 Dickens not previously read (I’m reading some Dickens each year and hope to get through them all)
The next book in the Herries Chronicle by Walpole, which is The Fortress (I’ve read a volume each year fo the last two years).
More Robert Silverberg and other great SF authors I know I like.
Read further in the 1632verse, which I’ve enjoyed a good deal so far.
Read the 2nd and 3rd Karla books by Le Carré.
Not worry too much about reading stuff I ought to read, when there’s stuff I know I like already sitting on my shelves patiently waiting for me to get to them.

And on that note, I’m now going to start The Stochastic Man, by Silverberg.

 

[tachyon]

One of my New Year's resolutions is to read more nonfiction related to my job/career for self-improvement purposes so I'll be consciously working on that this year.

I'll also be continuing to work on my Spanish, reading Spanish SFF.

My fiction reading in English will suffer a bit for these 2 goals but I'll continue pretty much as normal in my remaining available reading time, current and past SFF books and audiobooks for the most part.

 

[Rodders]

I’d like to inject more female writers into my library. I have only really read Anne McCaffery, Elizabeth Moon and Anne Rice. I really want to read some Ursula Le Guin This year.

 

[Overread]

Rodders - what about some Robin Hobb (who has loads in her big world setting starting with Assassin's Apprentice), Barbra Hambly (who I notice now has some new kindle editions of all her dragon books), Janny Wurts (loved "To Ride Hell's Chasm) Naomi Norvik (Temeraire dragon series) and Katharine Kerr (with her epic saga starting with Daggerspell)

 

[AndrewT]

I'm hoping to finish the Lonesome Dove series, the Revelation Space series plus Beyond the Aquila Rift (short stories), the Memory Sorrow Thorn series, and one each from Dickens and Steinbeck. I'll be covered for fantasy/sci fi/western/classic lit that way. Would like to add a historical fiction like World Without End but maybe the year won't be long enough. Too many pages and not enough time!

Try to predict what you will be reading Jan 1, 2030.

 

[Bick]

I'm hoping to finish the Lonesome Dove series, the Revelation Space series plus Beyond the Aquila Rift (short stories), the Memory Sorrow Thorn series, and one each from Dickens and Steinbeck. I'll be covered for fantasy/sci fi/western/classic lit that way. Would like to add a historical fiction like World Without End but maybe the year won't be long enough. Too many pages and not enough time!

Try to predict what you will be reading Jan 1, 2030.

All good ideas, similar to mine actually, apart from The Reynolds.
In 2030, I'll probably still be saying "I hope to read another Dickens I've not yet read", but in theory I should have chalked them all of by then.

 

[Bick]

I’d like to inject more female writers into my library. I have only really read Anne McCaffery, Elizabeth Moon and Anne Rice. I really want to read some Ursula Le Guin This year.

You've read Cherryh haven't you Rodders? If you haven't read her much, perhaps make it a goal this year to read Downbelow Station, Pride of Chanur or Gate of Ivrel?

 

[tegeus-Cromis]

Writers on the docket whom I hope to finish one or more books by this year (sorry, not much/any SF in there):

Elizabeth Bowen
Elizabeth Taylor (the novelist, not the actress)
James McCourt
J.L. Carr
Anthony Powell
Edward Whittemore (the Jerusalem quartet)
Nicola Barker
Joseph McElroy

And ideally to read more of / hopefully finish Proust

 

[Rodders]

Thanks for the recommendations on female authors. I'll be sure to check them out.

 

[Ian Fortytwo]

I don't normally do reading plans, however I will try to read some fantasy, some historical fiction, some historical fact. Of course the book group I go to may spring up some nice surprises. One book I'm aiming to read is The Mystery of Edwin Drood, by Charles Dickens. Another Charles Dickens book I want to read is The Pickwick Papers.

 

[Stephen Palmer]

Basically, lots more nonfiction.
My tbr pile at the moment is: The Evolution Of Imagination, Dilly, Hidden Depths (about hypnotism), Migraine (Oliver Sacks), and How Compassion Made Us Human.

 

[Stephen Palmer]

I’d like to inject more female writers into my library. I have only really read Anne McCaffery, Elizabeth Moon and Anne Rice. I really want to read some Ursula Le Guin This year.

Gwyneth Jones too.

 

[Randy M.]

Writers on the docket whom I hope to finish one or more books by this year (sorry, not much/any SF in there):
...

Same here.

After finishing The Ghost of the Mary Celeste, I intend to get read Dark Matter by Michelle Paver and The Tiger in the Smoke by Margery Allingham. After that The Sinister Mystery of the Mesmerizing Girl by Theodora Goss.

After that, I hope to read a short collection by Virginia Woolf, at least one novel by Dawn Powell, a couple of novels by Dorothy B. Hughes. I also hope to get to A Connecticut Yankee in King Arthur's Court (Twain) and Travels with Charley (Steinbeck), and reread Chronicle of a Death Foretold (Garcia Marquez). And then there are the story collections I should dig into ...

Randy M.