August Goals - A Clear-Eyed Assessment

Finished books are in CAPS, links are to my reviews.

  • ARCS from various sources
  • Book Groups
    • ONE FLEW OVER THE CUCKOO'S NEST BY KEN KESEY (Classic Literature)
  • Challenges
    • Down Under
      • Gilgamesh by Joan London [I'm halfway through this, and have been for weeks. Sigh. It is good! Don't blame the book!]
      • Voss by Patrick White
      • The Cardboard Crown by Martin Boyd
    • NYT Notable Books
    • Non-Fiction Five
      • IN COLD BLOOD BY TRUMAN CAPOTE
      • 1599: A Year in the Life of William Shakespeare by James Shapiro
    • Book Awards
      • Empire Falls by Richard Russo
    • 52 Plays/52 Weeks
      • let's try again for 10 plays in 4 weeks [My tracking system seems has sputtered a bit here, but I seem to have read more like 2. Boo to that.]
  • Preparations for teaching
    • The Iliad by Homer [I am more than halfway through this.]
    • ROBINSON CRUSOE BY DANIEL DEFOE
    • as much of James Joyce's Ulysses as I can manage
  • Other
    • Tales from Earthsea by Ursula K. Le Guin [I have also been halfway done with this lovely book for a long, long time.]
    • Runaway by Alice Munro
    • The New York Trilogy by Paul Auster
    • NOISY OUTLAWS, UNFRIENDLY BLOBS, AND SOME OTHER THINGS THAT AREN'T AS SCARY... ED. TED THOMPSON
  • Books from June/July [all optional, if I finish my August books - ha!]
    • [The Wind-up Bird Chronicle by Haruki Murakami]
    • [Hard-Boiled Wonderland and the End of the World by Haruki Murakami]
    • [The Vision of Emma Blau by Ursula Hegi]
    • [Gilead by Marilynne Robinson]
    • [The Bone People by Keri Hulme]

So this was the month of half-projects, mostly because in the last two weeks of August my work schedule became quite frantic. A summary:

6 books finished, 3 books half-finished (not counting the approximately 2 plays)
All these books were by new-to-me authors! How extraordinary.
1 work of non-fiction
1 collection of short fiction

September Reading Goals

This is going to be a very, very hard month (or few months) at work, so I am going to be a bit broader in my goals than I have been in the past, with a full expectation that I will fall short. It is, as always, all about the striving:

  • 8 plays (52 Plays/52 Weeks project)
  • The Iliad (for work)
  • Challenges - there will be some overlap here, I hope
    • 2 books from the NYT Notable Challenge
    • 2 Australian books (Year of Down Under Challenge)
    • 2 award winners (Book Awards Challenge)
    • 2 books by unread authors (Unread Authors Challenge)
  • Reading Groups
    • The Woman Who Waited by Makine (Slaves of Golconda)
    • G. by Berger (Booker Prize)
    • We by Zamyatin (Books in Translation)
    • The Echo Maker by Powers (Pulitzer)
  • Empire Rising by Sam Barone (ARC)
  • 4 Graphic Novels (since I have returned to my huge pile from the library)
  • To finish from August
    • Gilgamesh by Joan London
    • Tales from Earthsea by Ursula K. Le Guin
Anything else I manage to read this month will just be gravy. It will be a miracle if I finish a fraction of these.

There is one more resolution I would like to take up this month, inspired by Nick Hornby's Polysyllabic Spree. I am going to attempt to start keeping track of the books I bring into my home (through gifts, buying, mooching, or my reckless, unbridled library usage), as well as those I actually read.