One habit I am not trying nearly hard enough to break (though not the one I should break the most) is treating holidays as deadlines in which things must be achieved. These many blogs must be written, these many pages completed, these many films watched, these many miles hiked, these many people spoken to, and these many books read. I did not expect to beat last year's total, and tried not to think of it as some kind of race, but I did and did, completing twenty-four as of New Year's Eve Eve. That said, I read few short stories - 42- to last year's 48- so I suppose it's still a loss. I'm not so anal as to start counting pages, though I can't help wondering if massive epics from previous eras ought not to carry more weight than contemporary kids books. No matter - the purpose is in the reading.
I did not quite match last year's total for short fiction - 43 stories as opposed to last year's 48. As of writing, it's not too late to close that gap, but that'd be exactly the sort of arbitrary goal-post chasing I'm trying to avoid.
Last year I swore I would have something to say about each of them, but ended up posting none of them. So here's a list, before forget, to show that it wasn't an entirely wasted year.
Diary of a Wimpy Kid: The Last Straw - Jeff Kinney.
The Noise of Time - Julian Barnes
Invaders of Space - Murray Leinster
The Information - Martin Amis
The Hunger Games - Suzanne Collins
The Cowards - Josef Skvorecky
Chocky - John Wyndam
There's One in Every Crowd - Ivan E. Coyote
The Chimes - Charles Dickens
The Fall of Berlin - Anthony Reed/David Fisher
No Doors, No Windows -Harlan Ellison
The Hobbit - JRR. Tolkien
Black Arrow - Robert Louis Stevenson
Neuromancer - William Gibson
Transformations - James King
Pride and Prejudice - Jane Austen
The Curious Incident of the Dog in the Night - Mark Holdon
100 Years of Solitude - Gabriel Garcia Marquez
The Quiet Boy - Lois Lowery
White Fragility - Robin
Etienne's Alphabet - James King
Mother Tongue - Bill Bryson
The Two Towers - JRR Tolkien
Gathering Blue - Lois Lowery
Farewell Party - Milan Kundera
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