My 2022 plan: Read no fewer than 100 books from my personal library (i.e., books acquired before the end of 2021), including 25 or more non-fiction titles; at least two books from each of the following categories: Shakespeare (about and/or retold; the plays will not satisfy this category), poetry, NYRB, Kurt Vonnegut (by or about), Joyce Carol Oates, philosophy, art, and children’s / YA; and at least one book about my bird of the year (American Crow).
This morning, I joined our local library’s winter reading program, which awards virtual badges for minutes of reading. (I usually satisfy their requirements for a prize (a free book) within a week.) I will join Yiyun Li, who led both iterations of Tolstoy Together (I participated in 2021), when she begins Moby Dick this year, and I will continue my journey with Dante in 100 Days. Otherwise, I have not yet locked in any other reading projects, although I do hope to continue my studies with The Catherine Project.
I read 233 books in my first year of retirement and 208 in my second. As I eye the list of tomes on my list for this year (e.g.,Tom Stoppard: A Life (Hermione Lee; 2020; 896 pages), Van Gogh: The Life (Steven Naifeh and Gregory White Smith; 2011; 976 pages; and Ruth Bader Ginsberg: A Life (Jane De Hart; 2018; 752 pages)), I wonder if it’s wise to put a number out there. Granted, last year I managed The Count of Monte Cristo (Alexander Dumas; 1844), The Brothers Karamazov (Fyodor Dostoevsky; 1880), Middlemarch (George Eliot; 1871), The Free World: Art and Thought in the Cold War (Louis Menand; 2021), and War and Peace (Leo Tolstoy; 1869). Still, I think I will let the year unfold a bit before making a projection.
Tomorrow is New Year’s Eve, and I have no intention of rushing through any of the several books I’m currently enjoying, so I am calling it at 208 books read this year. (As always, I have included only cover-to-covers.) Here is my complete list, here are all of the posts annotating that list, and here are a few numbers:
♦ 208 books read this year
♦ 84 fiction titles (not including graphic works)
♦ 48 non-fiction titles (not including graphic works)
♦ 7 poetry selections
♦ 49 plays
♦ 20 graphic works (6 of which were non-fiction selections)
♦ 55 rereads (i.e., books that I had first read sometime in the past, not this year)
As I’ve shared, my goals for this year were to read 100 books from my shelves (i.e., books in my collection before the end of 2020), including at least 24 non-fiction titles and at least one book from each of the following categories: Shakespeare (by, about, retold, etc.) poetry, NYRB, Kurt Vonnegut (by or about), Joyce Carol Oates, philosophy, art, and children’s / YA. I read 123 books from the shelves, 27 of which were non-fiction titles, and, I met each of the category challenges.
“Looks like Ruth,” said my husband, who recently finished the fifth in Louise Penny’s Chief Inspector Gamache series. I could only laugh in agreement. If the fictional poet, my favorite character in the series, were a siamang, she’d look like the one above. Speaking of Three Pines, since my last annotated list, I finished All the Devils Are Here (2020) and am partly through the most recent book, The Madness of Crowds (2021). I accept the repetition, the improbabilities, the continuity errors, the repetition, etc. because I appreciate the world Penny built, in spite of its (many) flaws.
I also finished two books I mentioned earlier this month: In a Dark Wood: What Dante Taught Me About Grief, Healing, and the Mysteries of Love (Joseph Luzzi; 2015) and Thinking, Fast and Slow (Daniel Kahneman; 2011), which means that I have exceeded one of my challenges: at least 24 non-fiction titles read from shelves. The twenty-sixth was Give Me Everything You Have: On Being Stalked (James Lasdun; 2013). I began reading it eight years ago and was engaged but set it aside for some reason. A slim volume, it was easy to reread the first forty pages and continue. A fan of those neat moments of synthesis / synchronicity / serendipity, I appreciated Lasdun’s discussion of Sir Gawain and the Green Knight, which I also mentioned reading earlier this month, and Jorge Luis Borges’ “The Library of Babel,” which I read to prepare for last week’s The Readers Karamazov podcast. From Lasdun, for the commonplace book:
A person crosses your path; briefly their story intersects with yours and diverges again, leaving something of itself with you and maybe taking something of yours in return, and they’re gone. These days I have to remind myself that encounters with other people can be both interesting and inconsequential.
When I closed Our Country Friends (Gary Shteyngart; 2021), I turned to what appears to have been one of its inspirations, Uncle Vanya (Anton Chekhov; 1898. (Trans. Peter Carson; 2002)), which I much preferred. (Later in the winter break, I’m planning to watch the production filmed in August 2020 from the Harold Pinter Theatre in London.)
Tonight I plan to read Canto 12 of Dante’s Purgatorio for 100 Days of Dante and to finish Brown Girl Dreaming (Jacqueline Woodson; 2014) for a program in February.
Image captured at the conservation area this weekend.
In May, I noted that we were averaging about three miles daily on our morning walks. By mid-October, we had nudged that average to 3.5 miles with a four-plus-mile walk or two on the weekend. Just a month later, we had settled into a 4.1-mile daily average, and that seems to be about the right commitment for the time and light available to us before my husband begins work. The benefits are many, including a clear head, quality sleep, and an improved mood, even as the light continues to wane. Our neighborhood is wonderfully walkable, but at least once a week (usually on the weekend), we head to one of the conservation areas or state parks, something for which our feet and knees thank us. From Anna Botsford Comstock’s Handbook of Nature Study:
In my belief, there are two and only two occupations for Saturday [or Sunday] afternoon or forenoon […]. One is to be out-of-doors and the other is to lie in bed, and the first is best. Out in this, God’s beautiful world, there is everything waiting to heal lacerated nerves, to strengthen tired muscles, to please and content the soul that is torn to shreds with duty and care.
Arguably, I walk (and ride the exercise bike, do some weight work, and stretch) to ensure I can curl up and read (sans guilt and remorse) for long spells. Since my last annotated list, I finished, among other things, Linda Lear’s excellent biography of Beatrix Potter, which satisfied one of my reading challenges. As I wrote in August, my 2021 reading plan is to read no fewer than 100 books from my personal library (i.e., books acquired before the end of 2020), including 24 or more non-fiction titles and at least one book from each of the following categories: Shakespeare (by, about, retold, etc.), poetry, NYRB, Kurt Vonnegut (by or about), Joyce Carol Oates, philosophy, art, and children’s / YA. At this writing, I’ve read 196 books, 118 of which were read from my shelves (RFS). Twenty-three of those RFS were non-fiction titles, so I must read at least one more non-fiction work from my shelves, a challenge that will likely be met with either Daniel Kahneman’s Thinking, Fast and Slow, which I began reading in advance of attending The Guardian Live event last month, or Joseph Luzzi’s In a Dark Wood: What Dante Taught Me About Grief, Healing, and the Mysteries of Love, which complements my participation in 100 Days of Dante. (By the way, we are only six cantos into Purgatorio, so it’s not too late to join the project.)
Here is how I met the other RFS category challenges:
Shakespeare (by, about, retold, etc.): With The Winter’s Tale, The Tempest, and King Lear, I finished rereading all the plays last month. Earlier this year, I also read Maggie O’Farrell’s Hamnet and Matthew Haig’s The Dead Fathers Club, but, as I mentioned in last year’s summary, this year’s challenge is only satisfied if I have read at least one of the many non-fiction works I’ve collected. I’ve read three:
■ Tyrant: Shakespeare on Politics (Stephen Greenblatt; 2018.) ■ How to Think Like Shakespeare: Lessons from a Renaissance Education (Scott Newstok; 2020.) ■ Falstaff: Give Me Life (Harold Bloom; 1992.)
Poetry: ■ War Music: An Account of Homer’s Iliad (Christopher Logue; 2015.) ■ Stag’s Leap (Sharon Olds; 2012.) ■ Chicago Poems (Carl Sandburg; 1916. Poetry.) ■ The Inferno of Dante (Dante Alighieri; 1320. (Trans. Robert Pinsky; 1995.)) ■ Sir Gawain and the Green Knight (Unknown; 14th century. (Trans. J.R.R. Tolkien; 1975.) Poetry.)
NYRB: ■ The Goshawk (T.H. White; 1951. Non-fiction.)
Kurt Vonnegut (by or about): ■ God Bless You, Mr. Rosewater (Kurt Vonnegut; 1965. Fiction.)
Joyce Carol Oates: ■ Pursuit (Joyce Carol Oates; 2019. Fiction.) ■ The Collector of Hearts (Joyce Carol Oates; 1998. Fiction.)
Philosophy: ■ Lost in Thought: The Hidden Pleasures of an Intellectual Life (Zina Hitz; 2020. Non-fiction.) ■ Meditations (Marcus Aurelius; 180 A.D. (Trans. Gregory Hays.) Non-fiction.) ■ The Gospel According to Jesus: A New Translation and Guide to His Essential Teachings for Believers and Unbelievers (Stephen Mitchell; 1993. Non-fiction.)
Art: ■ Beatrix Potter: A Life in Nature (Linda Lear; 2007. Non-fiction.) ■ The Complete Tales (Beatrix Potter; 2002 edition. Fiction.)
Children’s / YA: ■ The Absolutely True Diary of a Part-Time Indian (Sherman Alexie; 2007. Fiction.) ■ The Mouse and His Child (Russell Hoban; 1967. Fiction.) ■ Harry Potter and the Sorcerer’s Stone (J.K. Rowling; 2001. Fiction.) ■ Harry Potter and the Prisoner of Azkaban (J.K. Rowling; 1999. Fiction.) ■ Harry Potter and the Goblet of Fire (J.K. Rowling; 2000. Fiction.) ■ Harry Potter and the Order of the Phoenix (J.K. Rowling; 2003. Fiction.) ■ Harry Potter and the Half-Blood Prince (J.K. Rowling; 2005. Fiction.) ■ Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows (J.K. Rowling; 2007. Fiction.)
In more recent reading news… Tolstoy Together 2021 concludes tomorrow, but, for a number of reasons, I decided to read the two epilogues of War and Peace and finish Yiyun Li’s companion volume late last week. As I noted in my October 7 tweet, the short readings coupled with the reflections in Tolstoy Together: 85 Days of War and Peace became a sort of secular daily devotional for me. What will I do on December 9? Well, 100 Days of Dante continues, and tomorrow is another Cardiff BookTalk, for which I read J.R.R. Tolkien’s translation Sir Gawain and the Green Knight.
Yesterday I read the fifteenth book in Louise Penny’s Chief Inspector Gamache series, and late last month I finished reading Akwaeke Emezi’s 2020 novel, The Death of Vivek Oji, which was heart-breaking. (Reviews here and here.)
In anticipation of shipping delays and supply issues, my husband suggested converting my wishlist into a few carts sooner rather than later. I like his thinking.
■ Glass Houses ■ Kingdom of the Blind Two more mysteries by Louise Penny.
■ Cymbeline ■ All’s Well That Ends Well Only three works remain in my quest to reread all of Shakespeare’s plays this year.
■ Oedipus Trilogy: New Versions of Sophocles’ Oedipus the King, Oedipus at Colonus, and Antigone (Trans. Bryan Doerries; 2021. Drama.) I celebrated the publication of this collection by reading along with the three related Theater of War events.
■ The Power and the Glory (Graham Greene; 1940. Fiction.) For the Cardiff BookTalk.
Nerdishly 