Reading Plans for 2023 and Beyond! 

I think that the only true things you can say about plans (well, except that no plan survives contact with the enemy) is that they change. I know mine certainly do – and they have. So, what am I ‘planning’ for this year? 

Following the Labels 

I’ve given up on the idea of working through my labels to construct a world tour. It just wasn’t working, at least not at the pace I was looking for. So, my labels plan for this year is to read at least one book from each book friendly label. At the moment there’s about 108 such on the list. I expect that 50 hits is more than achievable and my interim target will be 80. I’ll be more than impressed if I hit all 108. You may have noticed a tag below my book reviews regarding labels added/total. That’s to keep track of this plan. So far, so good I think. 

The ‘Knowledge Streams’   

I’m still intending to focus of my 3 ‘Knowledge streams’ - Britain Alone (1939-41), World War to Cold War and USA:WTF. I think I’m doing reasonably with Britain Alone and intermittently with Cold War (although this needs to be more focused on this year). My investigation into the USA is rather scatter-gun but I’m happy with it so far. More attempted unravelling of the WTF factor of the USA to come. 

The ‘Wild Cards’ 

My original wild cards have been put back in the pack. What I’m doing now is inserting a pair of matched books (usually one fiction/one non-fiction with a common theme or title) every 5 books or so. I’m enjoying the challenge of fitting books together without being on the nose too often – although that will happen from time to time!    

Finishing/Progressing Series 

This is something else I’ll continue working on. I don’t know exactly how many separate series or trilogy’s I’ve got ‘on the go’ presently except for the fact that there’s too many of them. I’ll definitely have at least one more Foundation and Dune book this year and maybe a couple more Sharpe novels. Naturally I might also START at least one new series too. 

Book length & the Review Pile 

My review pile is presently bumping along the rock bottom at 3. This isn’t good and means that if I want to maintain two reviews per week I can’t read 500+ page chunkers without the risk of having nothing to review. I am making more effort to read more pages per day (I am struggling to concentrate enough presently) but there will be an increase in the number of shorter books to add some fat to the pile so I can read some more substantial works from time to time. 

Other Plans 

I aimed at reading 6 Classics last year and managed around 10 – including a few books of short stories and some non-fiction classics. My aim for this year is 10. As I already have 1 under my belt I think that should be more than achievable. I think the ‘other’ theme for this year is: More. I want to read more Science, more History that predates Victoria, more about places, events and people outside Europe & the US, more Ancestry related books so I can understand more of what my research threw up on Ancestry.com, and so on. All rather vague, I know, but you have to start somewhere! Naturally, something or probably multiple things, will show up to prompt me to read about them. I’ll finally be digging into some books I picked up on Ukraine this year to gain some background to the present conflict. There should be some surprises in there for all of us. I do hope so. Let’s find out!