Reading Plans for 2024 and Beyond! 

So, here we are again – planning for the future! As always, I have ideas buzzing through my brain some of which are both practical and might indeed come to fruition. Other ideas.... Not so much. But we’ll see! A good part of my Plan will be a continuation of last years (and the year before that) plans but there will be modifications, wrinkles and some new ideas breaking through. 

Following the Labels 

Last year I tried to drop at least one book in each of the book friendly label buckets (just over 110 presently) with a minimum aim of 80. I actually managed 79, which wasn’t great. But it did show me how ‘biased’ my reading is towards certain subjects or topics. THIS year's label challenge will, therefore, be somewhat different: To populate as many of the low number book label buckets as possible with the aim (ultimately) of having at least 10 entries in each. Some are already on the edge of double figures so will be easy picking. Others? Not so much! 

The ‘Knowledge Streams’     

I’m still planning on progressing my ‘knowledge stream’ ideas. As before I’ll probably be hitting the ‘Britain Alone’ (1939-1941) stream more than any other but I’m also looking to have more success (or actually *any* success) with my World War to Cold War stream. There’re a few books in that bucket coming up ‘soon’. The USA:WTF stream was always going to be a scattergun approach as it has proven to be. More on that shortly. I am, however, looking to expand things by having an unofficial ‘Whole Wide World: WTF’ (WWW:WTF) stream trying to figure out something about why the world seems to have gone CRAZY over the past 5-10 years. If you’re as confused as I am about things presently this might be useful. 

The ‘Wild Cards’    

‘Wild Cards’ are mostly in abeyance ATM, but I’ll see about occasionally dropping in a few wild reads from time to time. There’s at least one planned for later in the year (a triple read with a title element in common) and I have a stack of books with interesting links ready to go. I’ll *try* to schedule more but there’s only so much I can read! 

Finishing/Progressing Series 

I’m going to be finishing off at least one (short) series soon and will be progressing both the Foundation series and Dune series this year. I’m also planning on engaging with some newer series (to me rather than to the world) as we go along. I’ll *try* not to start any more new series but I can’t be certain I’ll be able to resist them. I’m not counting the Sherlock books here or the stack of British Library Crime Classics or the Imperial War Museum Classics in this. They’ll progress as we go. 

Book length & the Review Pile 

It appears, so far at least, that my LONG running book slump might just be over. I don’t *feel* that I’m reading more (timewise at least) but I do seem to be managing more pages per day than recently. This being the case my review pile (as of today) stands at 6 which is pretty healthy for me. This means I can now schedule in the odd longer or more ‘difficult’ book into my reading plans – which is GOOD. Presently (as of this Thursday) my average book read is 295pp after around 330 recorded books. This has dropped from a high average of 341pp in Jan 2022 – so I’ve been dropping over 15 pages a year. I think my ‘real’ average presently is more like 265pp, but we’ll see how low it can go. I don’t think it’ll drop below that, especially if my reading recovery holds. 

Classics and Re-Reads 

My aim for Classic reads for 2023 was 10. I ended up reading 10 novels plus 3 re-reads, 2 books of Classic short stories and 1 non-fiction for a grand total of 16. My aim for this year will be 15. I’m confident that I should meet this (with 2 already in the review pile and other plans already in place). Unusually I re-read 7 books last year – in large part due to my Dune, Foundation and Sherlock reads. This will continue (to an extent at least) going forward. 

Deep Dives 

A change (or really a return) to my reading habits this year will be the idea of ‘deep’ dives – which will mostly consist of pairs or sometimes three books on a topic so I can get more of an appreciation of a subject rather than my usual flitting from topic to topic. Although I don’t have any firm plans ATM I might try a super-deep dive of four or more books on a topic at some point. I’d have to pick a GOOD topic not to bore myself though! [muses] My first deep dive has already started – review in around 3 weeks. 

Oh, and some Fun 

Sometimes I think my reading can verge too much towards the serious side of life so I’m going to sprinkle in a bit more ‘fun’ into things. To start that off I’m presently reading a stack of 10 novels associated in some way or other with trains. Other odd-ball stacks of books with some sort of link between them will follow – although not all of them will run to a series of 10. We’ll see....  

I think that’ll keep me going for a while. No doubt I’ll be dropping the odd – and no doubt very odd – random reads too but that’s just the way my brain works – a kind of controlled chaos. An interesting year ahead I think, with books too....