Looking Toward 2018

On By RelevantObscurityIn Reading Challenge, Yearly Recap

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I don’t have a great desire to do a recap of 2017. I want to look forward. But I do want to mention two things that were important to me this year:

  1. Favorite books of 2017: I am making myself choose only four, three classics and one historical novel, even though it is an impossible task! Dracula, Northanger Abbey, House of Mirth, and Radio Girls.
  2. “Enriched by reading the reviews” of other bloggers’ books is one of the ways I would characterize this year as well as reading your comments on mine.

Number 2 brings me to my plans for 2018. I am going to concentrate on what I would call the foundational classics I have not yet read, like Pride and Prejudice, Wuthering Heights, and books by Elizabeth Gaskell, George Eliot and Oscar Wilde. I want to read Rebecca and find out why it is on so many top ten list of favorites. And maybe I’ll tackle a Woolf.

And I want to read some American foundational classics like Uncle Tom’s Cabin and Moby Dick and books by Willa Cather and Henry James. Maybe do some traveling with Charley. Louisa May Alcott wrote so many other books besides Little Women…time to dust some off? And I want to find out more about Sarah Orne Jewett whose The Country of the Pointed Firs I so enjoyed in 2016.

 

 

In order to help with these deficiencies, I am taking part in a number of (overlapping) challenges, including Roof Beam Reader’s TBR, Back to the Classics and the Victorian Reading Challenge. These will also help me with my Classics Club list.

Since I can’t deny my attraction to the 19th century, I am also going to read more historical fiction that takes place in that time period, so I have signed up for the Historical Fiction Reading Challenge.

The second emphasis for the year is to expand my awareness outside the UK and US by concentrating on Reading all Around the World that I neglected last year,  participate in the European Reading Challenge and Doing Dewey’s Nonfiction Challenge. I can’t promise I will stay out of the 19th and early 20th centuries with these challenges, however, but more history and different perspectives and experiences is always a good thing!

I am also doing a personal challenge on the American Civil War with thanks to Jillian who helped me craft the categories.

Good gracious, this is a lot! And I know there will be readalongs and other events throughout the year that I will participate in…well, a good way to stay out of trouble!

I wish you all a Happy and Prosperous New Year!

28 thoughts on “Looking Toward 2018”

  2. joyweesemoll

    Good luck with your challenges. I’m looking forward to the Nonfiction Challenge — and I’m quite sure there will be some books about the 19th century among them!

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  4. Happy New Year! I really enjoyed Dracula and Northanger Abbey and I love Wuthering Heights, Pride and Prejudice and Rebecca, so I hope you enjoy them too! Good luck with your challenges and even more importantly, happy reading! 🙂

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  6. I hope you find some amazing books that stay with you as you go forward into 2018! Who knows, you may be able to teach a class on the 19th century by this time next year. 🙂

    I saw that Historical Fiction Challenge too and thought about participating but I didn’t want to commit to too much. That should be a fun one, though!

    I wish you good, and interesting, reading in 2018.
    Happy New Year!

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      1. Thanks, Laurie! Too funny, because Doing Dewey’s nonfiction challenge is the one I did sign up for. 🙂 I’m looking forward to reading a bunch of good nonfiction in 2018. I’ve got loads to learn. 🙂

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  8. They sound like good plans! Rebecca, Pride and Prejudice and Wuthering Heights are some of my favourite classics and I love to see people discover them for the first time. Good luck with the historical fiction challenge too. I also find the 19th century fascinating, although I’m being increasingly drawn to earlier time periods in my reading.

    Happy New Year, Laurie!

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  9. I am also not much of a yearly recap person. Your favorite books of the year are some of my all time favorites. I have found that reading “Foundational Classics” to be very rewarding. So such of what has come since, in terms of literature and thought, stems form them. Have a happy New Year’s!

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  12. Ambitious but smart! Ambitious because you’ve taken on so many challenges (I seem to be heading towards just one, to read what I fancy at the time) but smart in that so many, as you say, overlap. (Though I fancy you’ll need to create an Excel sheet or two to organise it all!)

    Anyway, I applaud your positivity in drawing a veil on the dying days of globe’s annus horribilis because, where 2017 is concerned, that way lies madness. Happy New Year, Laurie!

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    1. Whether I can actually accomplish all of this remains to be seen, but it looks like I am pointing myself in a good forward direction. I remain positive!

      “where 2017 is concerned, that way lies madness. “Oh my… truer words have never been spoken. We must go forward and find whatever light we can.

      I wish you and yours very well this year, Chris.

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