Thinking About: Reading Plans

I’ve never really been one for planning my reading – or much else for that matter. If I saw a book I liked the look of I’d buy it and, eventually, get around to reading it. Having a ‘butterfly mind’ and an interest in almost everything (with the notable exception of sport) I would follow my passion of the week which would direct my hand to whatever was near the top of my nearest ‘To Read Pile’. In other words my reading pattern was an undirected drift. Of course most of the time this didn’t really matter. After all I was mostly reading for entertainment and to pass the time. Occasionally I would read something useful or memorable but such things were far more by accident than design. But after some years (decades actually) I was becoming a bit bored with things. I begin feeling the need for structure – though not for a fully directed reading programme. That just wasn’t my style at all.

That’s when I started my ‘challenges’, though to be honest they haven’t proved to be all that challenging. What they have done, by reading 10 books with a common theme, is to both focus my attention and force me to unearth books that would otherwise languish at the bottom of the TBR pile forever unopened and unread. As a welcome side effect my boredom levels have decreased considerably – which is never a bad thing as I do so hate being bored. My present ‘challenge’ I started last week was to read 10 Alternate History books, so not really much of a challenge really! But only two books in it has prompted me to read yet another book that has been sitting on my shelves for some years which is, less than 30 pages in, already proving to be very interesting indeed. Next up, in recognition of a number of long term failures will be 10 books by women authors and 10 books by non-Anglo-Americans (basically books that have had to be translated into English – the only language I can read in).

I am also responding to my long term interests in non-fiction. As many of you will have realised I have over the last few years developed a deep passion for British and European history. I thought that I needed to restrict myself to a single continent, rather than the whole world, and my own seemed like the most logical place to focus on. Plus, of course, it’s always a good idea to know where you come from and where your roots are. It centres you in an ever changing and often confusing world. So expect much more of that sort of thing. As part of that, and with the 100th anniversary almost upon us, I’ll be reading quite a bit about WW1 and deciding for myself whether the right-wing or left-wing interpretation of events is closer to the truth. I have a fair idea of what the outcome of that particular investigation will be. Speaking of politics there’s going to be a fair bit of that in the future too – although ironically I suspect that most of that will actually be political history. My abiding interest has long been in revolt, rebellion, resistance and revolution. I’m not exactly sure why this is the case. Maybe I’m just a natural rebel and in another time or another place would have died on some barricade somewhere for one lost cause or another. At least I can read about the people who did so in years gone past and presently in places far away. Expect a lot more of that sort of thing being reviewed here. Oh, and if you had any dubts about my political leanings and, therefore, my political reading it’s definitely towards the Left.

I do recognise the fact that my science reading has been seriously neglected. It’s not that such things hold no interest – quite the contrary. I suppose that, in the grand scheme of things, they hold somewhat less interest than those already outlined above. Nevertheless, I shall attempt to shoehorn more science into my future reading. That’s certainly enough to be getting on with for now. I doubt if the major themes will change much in the next few years though I’m not adverse to the odd out of the ordinary passion popping up from time to time. For example, I’ve become rather interested lately in art and design. I wonder exactly where that might lead……