Reading plans for 2020?

[Extollager]

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?

Any stock-taking for our year of reading that's about to end?

 

[Bick]

Ok, stocktaking:

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 for 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 bad, as it turns out.
I read a Dickens (Tale of Two Cities)
I read the third Herries chronicle novel
I read a few more Silverberg novels as well as some other classic SF and favoured authors
I read another 1632 book
but...
I didn’t read more Le Carre - shame on me

 

[Rodders]

A poor year for me this year. But not as bad as I Initially thought.

Still, I did get to read Surface Detail and the Hydrogen Sonata by Iain M. Banks.

I finished Scalzi's Old Man's War series along with Neal Asher's Polity books. I also got to read Flowers for Algernon.

 

[hitmouse]

I binge reread the first 6 or 7 Aubrey - Maturin books and thoroughly enjoyed them. Then felt a bit guilty because we were trying to do one per month. Apologies @Extollager.

I have been pretty diverted for
most of the year, workwise with Covid- related science and epidemiology, which has been oddly compelling and which has involved digesting a large volume of academic papers and raw data. Currently on day 10 of my own personal Covid infection, which I can report is no fun at all, and consoling myself with a reread of As I Walked Out One Midsummer Morning by Laurie Lee.

 

[Randy M.]

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.

Well, I finished everything in that first paragraph. Not a one in the second, though. Oh, well.

Randy M.

 

[Vince W]

Moving put a huge block on my reading. I've read a few books, but free time has been at a premium this year. Excuses, excuses...

 

[soulsinging]

I swore I'd do this, especially since I'm WAY behind my colleagues moving from literature/law into the IT world, but every time I pick up a book on networking or programming I just KNOW I'll never open it in my free time. Still, if I keep thinking/planning on it, maybe I'll get there.



I'd like to try this as well, particularly after rereading Catch-22 and finding the misogyny a bit much even by "things were different then" standards and wondering how I completely glossed over it the 3-4 other times I read it. Also, there was a great non-western SFF thread around here that put me to a few new titles and authors to explore.

My plan this year is to finish Tad Williams's MS&T, which I've been absolutely loving as I've slowly worked through it since my son was born in Nov 2018. Then I've got 8 other books I've picked up cheap on the kindle or with gift cards that I want to try out:

Rosewater - Tade Thompson
City of Brass - SA Chakraborty
Trail of Lightning - Rebecca Roanhorse
Sabriel - Garth Nix
Wizard of Earthsea - Ursula LeGuin (I've read this series before and remember almost nothing about it, but didn't care for the Dispossessed and want to give this legend another chance)
Relic - Douglas Preston & Lincoln Child (started this 25 years ago but was too scared to finish at 11)
Lost Man - Jane Harper (good old fashioned mystery with fraternal drama)
The Spy and the Traitor - Ben MacIntyre (thanks to recommendations here)

If I find time, I would like to tackle 1-2 of the following:

Series to finish: Wool, Hugh Howey
Reread: Tolkien LOTR/Silmarillion, Abercombie's First Law, Rowling's Harry Potter
Classics to tackle: Our Mutual Friend, Les Miserables, War and Peace, Invisible Man (reread)
New series to start: Player of Games - Iain Banks, Lord of the Silver Bow - David Gemmell, Leviathan Wakes - James Corey

I read 5 of the 8 in the first list (Trail of Lightning, Wizard of Earthsea, Relic, Lost Man, The Spy and the Traitor). Of the second group, I did start a Tolkien reread beginning with the Hobbit, Silmarillion and now into Two Towers. I vowed not to start a new series until I finish an old one (Wool or First Law), and my ambitions on the classics took a turn away from Europe and towards some of the classics (and a few highly regarded SFF works) of African-American authors, including Toni Morrison, James Baldwin, Frederick Douglass, Octavia Butler, and Alice Walker.

Considering we got hit with a pandemic and had our second baby this year, I'm satisfied!

 

[Danny McG]

For some reason I ended up reading a lot more than I expected to at the start of 2020.

You'd think I'd been confined to the house for months

 

[AE35Unit]

I need to read more Dickens, I've only read 3. Last I read was Old Curiosity Shop on my Kobo.

 

[Vince W]

I need to read more Dickens, I've only read 3. Last I read was Old Curiosity Shop on my Kobo.

I feel the same.