Classics Considered

With the end of the year approaching, it’s a good time to take a look at my reading goals and see if I’m on track!

Goodreads Challenge

Every year I participate in the Goodreads Challenge, which is simply a numbers game. Any books you mark “read” in the current year are counted (regardless of when you started them), and anything you can find on GR is a “book.” It tends to even out—you don’t get extra points for those really long books, which makes me feel better about counting the really short ones.

I’m currently 10 books short of my goal, but I have a couple in the pipeline that just need to be finished (Beowulf, Light in August), one graphic novel, and Christmas break (assuming I take one), which usually yields a lot of reading.

I’m hopeful I can finish this challenge. I had a winning streak from 2016 to 2020. The past two years I fell short, in part because of books like Kristin Lavransdatter (a 1000-page trilogy I have only counted for 2023) and in part due to reading slump or too-lofty goals.

Personal Reading Goals

The goals I set for this year are as follows:

• Finish Dune
  • I have not done this and the delayed movie release gave me further excuse to wait. However, it’s front of mind again: the actors’ strike just ended, and March will be here sooner than I realize!
• Finish Kristin Lavransdatter (!!!)
  • Completed! I finished KL back in March.
• Travel to the next stops on my Voyages
  • I read several titles for War & Pacifism, and the graphic novel I’m reading now probably qualifies.
  • I’m in my fourth novel for Reading the World, which, considering how long East of Eden was and how busy we have been, is pretty good.
  • Didn’t end up reading anything for Lawrence, Shackleton, or Victorians (except The Woman in White), and probably won’t now.
• Keep improving my YouTube setup
  • Haven’t really done anything in this regard except update my OS to a newer version of Linux, which was overdue anyway. However, now videos seem to export faster, which I’m quite pleased about.

Overall

Even though most of my quality reading tends to happen between Thanksgiving and New Year’s, I’m already happy with what I’ve read this year. I’ve read two “axe” books (need to update that list!), shouldered through East of Eden (more proud of the feat than of the experience), enjoyed a book from Mongolia, and read some poetry and plays. It’s been a delightfully balanced reading year so far, and whatever rounds it out will only make it better.