1.08.2013

Top Ten Tuesday: Books I Resolve to Read in 2013

This week's topic is Top Ten Bookish Goals For 2013, but I've already made public note of my primary goals for the year, bookish and otherwise. On account of which, I'm doing last week's topic, which I missed as last Tuesday was New Year's.

Top Ten Tuesday is hosted by The Broke and the Bookish! Do come join the fun...

Since I've pledged to read four to six fairy tale retellings:
  • I'm particularly fond of the tale East of the Sun and West of the Moon, so 1) Jessica Day George's Sun and Moon, Ice and Snow should hit my inbox before long.
  • I'd like to read 2) Edith Pattou's East, another version of the same tale, too.
  • My sister Beth means to loan me 3) Robin McKinley's Sleeping Beauty adaptation, Spindle's End, which I'd have already if I'd remembered to get it from her yesterday.
  • I've got my eye on Janette Rallison's Cinderella twists 4a) My Fair Godmother and/or 4b) My Unfair Godmother.
All this amounts to the likelihood that I'll hit my goal of four retellings sometime in February. I might become a Great and Terrible Beast instead of a Lady in Waiting by the end of the year.

And now, fireworks, please:



5) The final Wheel of Time book, A Memory of Light, came out today! I'll spare you the number of exclamation points I'm actually feeling on this subject. Suffice it to say that I'm resolved to begin reading the instant my copy shows up in the mail.

Yes, the mail. My go-to local bookstores didn't—as far as I could discover—host the sort of release celebration that would've allowed me to dress up as Aviendha, which would've been my best motivation for paying fifteen dollars more for the book than it cost to pre-order on Amazon. Ergo, I'm waiting on Standard Shipping. I have to finish 6) Evelyn Waugh's Brideshead Revisited before book club, anyway, so I might as well read that while I wait.

Somewhere in my resolves, I should make room for 7) Moby-Dick or War and Peace or even The Life and Opinions of Tristram Shandy, the latter of which I've at least begun, though I lost patience with Tristram when he started going on for pages about his uncle's groin. I also ought to finish 8) The Silmarillion, which I started before last Christmas.

Oh, and I'd like to read Orson Scott Card's 9) Shadow Puppets and 10) Shadow of the Giant, too.

There, that's ten—just ten of the at-least-fifty-two I hope to read this year. Some titles may be subject to change without notice.

What books do you plan to read this year?

10 comments:

  1. I'm with you on War and Peace, mainly because there won't be any marital harmony until I finally read the damn thing.
    -The Neglected Husband

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    1. Haha. I believe you. I feel like I ought to read it just for the sake of honoring my friendship with your wife. :)

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  2. I'm eager to hear your insights into Brideshead. I did not like it, though that is not because of poor writing, and since I think I may have read it during a period of prolonged sleep deprivation, I do not consider my dislike to be unmovable. It's quite possible that I am unfairly holding the same grudge against it as I had toward The Giver - that when I had expected sunshine, it bore rain, to paraphrase Willoughby (or am I thinking of another of Austen's callow young men? That seems equally likely to have come out of the mouth of Frank Woodruff.)

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  3. And OF COURSE I'm looking forward to your review of War & Peace. That will be almost as good as re-reading it myself, and tons less work :))))

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    1. And now I think I'm committed. Oh, well, I wasn't enjoying Tristram Shandy anyway. :P

      Thus far I am loving Brideshead, but I'm worried about that whole rain-instead-of-sunshine thing. Sebastian seems like the type to die young and tragically. And yeah, that quote's from Willoughby. "Because he [Colonel Brandon] has threatened me with rain when I wanted it to be fine. He has found fault with the hanging of my curricle, and I cannot persuade him to buy my brown mare." Or something like that. I might be shooting closer to the movie version there.

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  4. Alas, poor War and Peace! I read it once, Horatio.

    Or something like that. Now, the book I really need to get around to reading is The City of God by St. Augustine. Of course, I've only been saying that for 15 years or so.

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  5. What books do you plan to read this year?

    What is this plan thing of which you speak? I just kind of read books as the mood strikes me. Which means I usually have ten or eleven books in progress simultaneously.

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    1. Hahahah!

      Yeah, sometimes I think I'll never read Moby-Dick, just so there'll always be one more classic I "really need to get around to reading."

      I totally do the multiple books in progress thing, though most of them are non-fiction and I hardly ever finish those. Usually I'm only reading one novel at a time, discounting the fact that I still haven't finished The Silmarillion or Tristram Shandy. :)

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  6. There are a lot of books I plan to read, but who knows what will happen! I've had Crimson Petal and the White on my shelf for a really, really long time- maybe I should but through that this year!

    By the way, that column you're looking at your profile picture is absolutely beautiful!

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    1. Isn't it? That was at an old museum in Italy. I just loved it.

      Best of luck with your reading goals! I've never read Crimson Petal and the White, either. :)

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