Last year was a terrific reading year. The variety, the intensity, the pacing: all so satisfying.

My read-o-lutions for 2018 are much as they were for last year: keep on reading on.

Perhaps a little more emphasis on illustrations and translations would be good.

Series

With eight series, I either managed to complete the series or I brought it up-to-date with the latest publications. And while I did start four new series (two of them for new 2017 projects – books by Mazo de la Roche and Louise Erdrich), I am reading onwards in all of them.

Short Stories

Through the year, I read 18 collections of short stories along with some memorable singles in magazines and journals: Summer 2017Autumn 2017Winter 2017. Along with my Mavis Gallant reading, another four of her collections, I hope to read even more stories in 2018.

MustReadEverything Authors

Only 12 struck from these lists over the past year, and new titles added as well, but I did not choose those deliberately, rather, natrally, so I’m pleased with that.

This year, I will finish with both David Mitchell’s and Louise Erdrich’s books, but fortunately they are both still writing stories.

My 2018 has already gotten off to a terrific start. I’m wondering whether W.G. Sebald and Amitav Ghosh might become MRE Authors for me too.

20-Somethings and Stucks

Both longtime projects – books neglected on my shelves for more than twenty years and books which I’ve begun to read more than once but faltered with completing – saw a bit of progress (seven and eight books, respectively).

Rudyard Kipling’s Kim was on my shelves for decades. John Irving’s A Prayer for Owen Meany was a particularly tough bookish nut to crack.

Ten, of each, could be a reasonable goal.

Better

Well, one thing I need to do better with. There is a particular stack of books in one corner of a room. I no longer recall the impetus for having sorted them into that stack. But they do not have proper shelved homes. None of them have been read: they have that in common. They need some love.

What excites you about 2018?