Today is the day I finish my #blog12daysxmas blogging challenge and will take myself back to the beginning of the blog, Hecuba Reads. Two years ago around the same time of the year, I set up this blog in an attempt to recreate reading as a joy for me, or maybe as it turned out to document the reading I already did and the enjoyment it gave me. That year, 2010, I gave myself the aim of reading 52 books in the coming year. I also wanted to document them so that I had a record of my reading for pleasure. I have posted earlier in this blog about how I explored possibilities for this documentation and finally decided upon Goodreads as my favourite site to use. Goodreads records that in 2010 I read 61 books. So I met my target.
I have just been reviewing my achievements for 2011. That involved checking through the list of titles for 2011 and taking out the ones that are still also in my "to read" or "currently reading" shelves. So what did I end up with after that? Well, in 2011 I managed to read and record the reading of 87 titles.These titles included a mixture of fiction and non-fiction but were predominantly fiction. There were in fact only seven non-fiction titles and they were a combination of cooking, travel and biography. Within fiction there were a lot of old favourites. I always do a bit of rereading of Agatha Christie and Georgette Heyer and some of their titles, of course, appear.
Three retrospective rereads purposely undertaken are also there for 2011. I had undertaken to reread the complete works of Elizabeth Peters in 2010 and some of these titles, mainly the one-offs, spilled over to 2011. I also reread all the Dorothy L. Sayers crime titles (and few Wimsey books that others have written since her death). When Kerry Greenwood's most recent title, Cooking the books came out, I read that and then went back and reread the whole Corinna series - and the whole Phryne series. Interestingly I discovered that there were a number of the Phrynes that I had not read before. I am not sure how I missed out on them, but obviously I had. Now I am just waiting for Kerry to write and publish a few more titles and, of course, eagerly awaiting the Phryne TV series on ABC-TV this year.
This year 2012 is the first year that I have actually given myself a target on the Goodreads site and I didn't want to be too ambitious. I have just gone for 52 again. Hopefully I can meet that target again. How much is it to ask to read one book a week in 2012? And I wonder what I will read? I am happy to let my reading occur serendipitously I think. I like picking up old favorites and reading them, or coming across new items on the Hawthorn Library new books shelves, or talking to people about things they have liked. Maybe I will get some ideas this year from the National Year of Reading too.
But I am just going to keep it simple. Reading isn't a chore that needs to be done or for which I want to set commitments. Reading is just something that I do every day (or most days) for fun and enjoyment and relaxation.
