As I often tend to towards the end of the month, I spent Monday night sorting through my bookshelves and trying to decide on a few goals for the next month. I love to do this and usually several books jump out shouting 'read me, read me'. Last night though, I faced a slight conundrum when approximately 90% of my bookshelves demanded to be read. That's a significant number of books, far more than I can read in a lifetime (slight exaggeration), let alone a month.
Faced with this situation I decided to declare July as a 'free reading' month. Aside from a very exciting readalong I'm joining in on, I don't have any specific challenges or topics to focus on this month or any books I really should be reading and reviewing. In the spirit of that then, I'm going to read whatever the hell I like.
Perhaps I'll fancy a stroll with Wilkie (obviously), or maybe it's time to re-read an old favourite. It could be that the mood suddenly strikes to tackle one of the more intimidating classics on my Classics Club list. I may be swept away into another flurry of World War One reading and knock one or two books off my War Books Challenge - it is the countdown to the big day now after all. There is even a likelihood that I spend some time with a Russian author or two. Or maybe, ignoring all that, I will decide to read lighter, more summery reads.
Only time will tell.
In the meantime I will carry on with The Double by Fyodor Dostoyevsky which I picked up in Spitalfields Market on Sunday and started straight away. Three cheers for spontaneous bookish purchases.
I would love any recommendations for things to read as I shimmy my way through July. You know if I'm encouraged to read Wilkie, I most definitely will.
That's a great idea for summer! I'm sort of doing the same thing by joining a re-reading/read-books-I've-been-meaning-to-read-forever event as an *excuse* to read whatever the heck I want this month :)
ReplyDeleteThat's such a good plan. I'm actually in the mood for a re-read.
DeleteI definitely think free reading is a good idea at this time of year. I'm having to narrow my reading choices down quite a lot because I'm boxing my books up up and stowing them elsewhere in the house so I can paint my room - but even so, I'm trying to keep a decent mix of stuff out because you just never know what you'll want to read in summer! I like reading some really light, fluffy, easy-going stuff, especially if I'm splashed outside slowly melting on a sunlounger, but then again I also sometimes get an urge for literary fiction or a more summery-feeling classic, or some exciting page-turning crime thriller or something. If we get a week's rain and storms again I might tackle something bigger and more indoor-reading friendly, one of my big hardbacks perhaps. As I'm nearing the end of my current read I can sort of FEEL what direction I'm skewing towards and start checking out my shelves, but in can fluctuate from day to day until I'm ready to choose so I don't want to narrow my focus too much! :)
ReplyDeleteThere is something about just laying on a sun lounger that invites the lighter stuff. Although I'm interested to see whether I will read more classics than usual this summer as I seem to be in a bit of a groove with them. I have a terrible habit of lining up my next book whilst I'm still reading another. I think that narrows my focus a little and distracts me from the book I'm reading. Seriously, there are too many bookish problems :D
DeleteRandom free form reading is good from time to time. It breaks out of any rut you might have read yourself in to... Been there, done that! But I found that following my nose made me a lazy reader - basically picking the next book off one of my TBR piles rather than thinking about things a bit deeply. I now alternate between themed and non-themed reading (10 each in fiction) and shorter themed non-fiction.
ReplyDeleteI've almost finished a batch of alt-history books so my next 10 will be un-themed (but not random) after that I'm reading 10 books by women. My next theme after that (yes, I'm sad enough to plan that far ahead) is 10 books by non-Anglo-Americans (AKA that have been translated into English.
My next non-fiction reads are 3 books based in wartime France (WW2) and 3 books on our relationship with our created artifacts AKA - Stuff.
That lot should keep me going for a while!
You are such an organised reader! Themed reading sounds like such a good idea. I probably semi do that already to a slightly lesser degree than you because if I read a book about WW1 (for example) I then want to read more about it. I seem to go through little periods of reading about certain topics. Perhaps I'll think about themes a little more. Enjoy your reading over the next month of so, it sounds ike you've got some excellent topics coming up!
DeleteI'm definitely a lot more organised than I used to be. Over the years my reading really drifted and settled pretty much in my comfort zone and it got frankly boring. Plus I often took the lazy option of reading whatever I'd bought recently which meant that a lot of my older purchases never had much of a look in. I tried mixing things up by upsetting and resorting my TBR piles but that didn't do much. Then I came up with my 'challenges' such as 10 books with a colour in the title or 10 books in a particular genre and so on. It forced me to read older books and actually mine the TBR pile for books I'd basically forgotten about. It was a great way to get some fresh air and some energy back into my reading. You can also have a lot of fun in picking the theme. How about 10 books authored by someone with David as a 1st name? Or with a number in the title or a persons name? Or 10 books based in cities or written between certain time frames? Basically you can pick anything as long as you think you could get 10 books out of it..... 10 books with a title beginning with 'The...' The possibilities are endless and you never really know what they might throw into the mix.
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