Reading Plans for 2022 and Beyond! - Mid-year Update 

Is it mid-JULY already? How time does fly...! I was going to save this update for next week but I don’t have anything else lined up and I felt like Blogging. So... I think it’s been a pretty good reading year so far even if some of my planned reading is still waiting in the wings, but I guess that’s what the SECOND half of the year is for. 

Following the Labels 

After the recent world tour hiatus, I’ve almost finished with Greece (one more book to come shortly) before moving on to India. I’m pretty confident that I’ll at least start the Ireland set by New Years. Probably.  

The ‘Knowledge Streams’ 

I’m still making slow progress with my ‘Britain Alone’ sequence and have a few more books on Appeasement before moving on to the War proper (or should I say War ‘phony’?) with the invasion of Poland and the Russian attack on Finland. Eventually (yeah, right), I’ll get to where my collection of books started – with Churchill becoming PM. Reflecting the hit & miss nature of the topic I’ve had a hit & miss relationship with the ‘World War to Cold War’ set of reading – both in fiction and non-fiction. The ‘plan’ was to start with the baseline of Occupied Europe before moving on to the Liberation. That’s still pretty much in the starting pit I’m afraid! I think I’m doing much better with ‘USA: WTF’ as it’s such a large & diverse subject. I’m not any nearer actually UNDERSTANDING the US though.  

Wild Cards 

I’ve had another change of heart with my ‘Wild card’ inserts into the read-next stack. I’m now operating with a single ‘card’ every 5 books which introduces a double header of connected works. The first of these was the fictional and non-fiction treatment of the Zeebrugge Raid. Much more of that sort of thing to follow. 

Finishing/Progressing Series 

I have the final (so far!) three Sharpe novels to come (I should get to at least one of them this year) and will probably read the third Dune book too. I’m going to TRY to start off the Foundation series if I can. Being so short that might help build up my review backlog which is looking a little thin ATM. Oh, and there should be at least one more ‘Miss Marple’ read this year. Probably. 

Bigger Books & reducing the Review Pile 

As I’m trying to keep the average book length above 300 pages, I’ve been trying to read larger books. This has meant (at least presently) to my review backlog falling to a mere FOUR – two week's worth of reviews. This is too low for comfort so I’ll be slipping in a few more short books in the near future and my average will need to take a hit. Presently it’s at 329pp but I have a sneaking suspicion that the ‘real’ number is somewhere around 285pp. Time will, as they say, tell. 

Awards 

I’m still enjoying reading Award winners (mostly fiction but some non-fiction too) so this will continue. I think I’ve finally lost my reverse snobbery regarding award winners and have found them, generally, to be as good as normal people – hence not me – would expect. 

Continuing as Usual 

I’m behind ‘schedule’ with my Classics reading and I want to read six this year. Only two so far though, so I’ll need to pick up the pace. Luckily most of the ones I have are pretty short. I STILL haven’t finished my ‘Man Vs Machine’ sequence and have found myself inserting books from other stacks. This ‘more random than usual’ process will probably continue for the rest of the year. We’ll see. Looking on the positive side, at least I’ve dipped a fictional toe in fictional history before the 19th century. More of that sort of thing to come. Here’s to the NEXT six months of reading. Onwards!