This year, in addition to making reading goals, I also spread out my reading more. While I'd normally have 2 or maybe 3 books going at a time, I expanded that to 5-7, trying to make sure I had a variety of depths and topics covered at any given moment. It really worked. I hope having several choices in each category will keep my inspire - and help me get those ILL ins. The * means I don't own it and our library. So this list contains a lot of books I've wanted to read for a while but haven't gotten around to requesting plus a bunch I found in the basement while organizing and put aside because they looked good. Which probably isn't the typical way book lists are made but what can I say, I'm unique.
It's a work in progress and I reserve the right to add or subtract books when I want but here is what I've got so far.
Biographies
- Beatrix Potter: A Life in Nature*
-The Inn of 6th Happiness*
-The Hiding Place
-Only a Novel: The Double Life of Jane Austen
Education
-Norms and Nobility -Finally bought it during the Amazon 30% of any book sale. It was still pricey but I'm glad I'm going to have the time to read it slowly. I've actually already started and am almost finished with the prologue!
-The Living Page - A re-read. I bought it and devoured it while focusing on notebooks for myself but this time I want to slow down and focus on Lucy's upcoming first grade year (Ack! First grade! How? But by the end of 2015, I'll be gearing up for "real school")
-Charlotte Mason Volumes 2 (finish), 4 and 5 - Reading with the Ambleside Online Forum
-Consider This* - If I finish all those, I will reward myself with this one.
Parenting/Marriage
-Protecting the Gift - I don't want to read this one but I know I need to
-Something about intense/gifted parenting - have a suggestion?
-Something marriage related. Maybe Sacred Marriage?
Other Non-fiction
-When Athens Met Jerusalem*
-Laura Ingalls Wild, Farm Journalist: Writings from the Ozarks
-The Deadliest Monster
Classics and Harder Fiction
-Something by Dickens - I'm reading A Christmas Carol right now (which I can't believe I've never actually read yet although I was in a play version in high school) but can't remember ever reading any other Dickens. Surely I have? If not, I must remedy this. I'm not sure what to start with so I'm open to any suggestions.
-Middlemarch - Can you believe I've never read this? For some reason it really intimidates me but I'm also sure I'll love it once I get into it. If I don't read anything else on this list, I really want to make sure I complete this.
-Plutarch - 1-2 lives. I loved the first one I read but got stuck on the second more because of the format I was having to read it in than the work itself. Will try again!
-Kristin Lavransdatter*
-1984
Medium Weight Fiction
-Gilead*
-The Housekeeper and the Professor*
-China Court: Hours of a Country House*
Fluffy Fiction
-Three Men in a Boat
-Hillsboro People
-More Lord Peter Books* - whatever I can get my hands on for cheap/free
-Lady Audley's Secret
-Rest of the Thursday Next series - only 3 to go?
-Hannah Fowler*
-Somewhere Safe with Somebody Good
Pre-Reading (Ambleside)
-Understood Betsy
-Daughter of Time (With AO Forum)
-Watership Down (With AO Forum)
-Idylls of the King (With AO Forum)
-Start Pre-reading AO Year 1 as I buy them
To Finish
-Once and Future King - was enjoying it but it got put aside and lost. I need to find it, then finish it
-The Princess and the Goblin
Whew, so that's about 30. Which isn't really a lot, numbers wise. But I'm still pretty intimidated by this list. I do think its realistic for me though and I'm excited about it. Anything you are looking forward to reading in this upcoming year? I've probably got room to squeeze another on here if you can convince me. To 2015!
I really liked Great Expectations. It takes some work, but it's actually really funny, and the payoff is great. Also, I just finished Gilead and I think you'll really like it.
ReplyDeleteI recently read Bleak House (by Dickens) and enjoyed it, but I'd probably second Great Expectations if you haven't read it.
ReplyDeleteI'm in the middle of Raising Your Spirited Child and it's pretty good.
I've read A Tale of Two Cities multiple times. I'm consistently surprised to find I like it after picking it up to read to sleep.
ReplyDeleteRaising Your Spirited Child, Smart but Scattered, A Parent's Guide to Gifted Children, Guiding the Gifted Child, and Freeing Your Child from Obsessive Compulsive Disorder. (OK, that last one might seem out of the blue, but OCD-like behaviors often appear in conjunction with giftedness. One daughter displayed some debilitating OCD behaviors beginning around 3 or 4 and after watching a brother struggle with OCD I wanted to be very proactive about addressing them, and this book helped SO MUCH.)
ReplyDeleteI just realized that you have The Inn of the 6th Happiness on your list. Her autobiography is titled The Little Woman, but the book I've read many times is The Small Woman by Alan Burgess. If your library doesn't have it, I could mail it to you.
ReplyDelete@AR - Thanks, I was a bit confused about that because I tried to add it to my Goodreads when you first suggested it but Goodreads has the Alan Burgess listen as The Inn of Sixth Happiness and nothing for The Small Woman book but looking at the comments and at Amazon, it looks like the book may have been remarketed/renamed after the movie came out. But my library doesn't have anything by him under any title so if you don't mind sharing, I'd love to borrow it.
ReplyDelete@Everyone else - Thanks for recommendations!