In last year’s Reflections post (thinking back on 2021’s reading, from January 2022), I realised that I hadn’t read at all according to plan the previous year. And…I had what will likely prove to be the reading year of my lifetime in 2021.

Which is how you create a success out of failing to achieve your main goal (mine was to read less and write more). That’s my primary goal for 2023, too—to prioritise writing over reading—so we’ll see. Maybe I’ll take up marathon running.

Even though it seemed foolish to make predictions, I planned to read more poems and look at more pictures in my 2022 reading, and that went well. There were a lot of floating plans behind these two key ideas, too, though: short stories and books listed for Canadian literary prizes (I read them but not as many as usual), non-fiction and international fiction (I read this, too, but not so much). Okay, so this might go off the rails or tickety-boo: one of those, or somewhere between.

In 2023, I’d like to blend old and new.

I have several shelves of older books that I tend to overlook in favour of contemporary writers’ works. Last year, just 9% of my reading was published before 2000, and the oldest book was from 1922 (a reread, Elizabeth von Arnim’s Enchanted April). The past couple of years my reading has been heavily weighted in favour of publications from…well…the past couple of years. But I would like to spend time with more older books this year, and keep the stacks fresh with magazines and journals along the way.

Time to look backwards for a spell.

And Mister BIP often buys me books and good ones (the kind I would find a pleasure, not a labour, to read)—most recently from Bakka-Phoenix and A Different Booklist in Toronto. I am an enthusiastic recipient, but then I get lost in other reading plans and they sit, neglected. Many are science-fiction and fantasy by writers I’ve really enjoyed (like Nalo Hopkinson, N.K. Jemisin, Becky Chambers, Aviaq Johnston, and Terry Pratchett) but I’ve fallen “behind” with them. Some are reprints of favourites that I previously read from a library (like Octavia Butler, Ursula K. LeGuin, Guy Gavriel Kay, Hiromi Goto, and Naomi Novik).

And…look forwards, too.

Vague ideas don’t offer enough direction for me. I could say “read more old books” forever and maybe I would read one or two. Always intending to do so, but never actually making it happen. Particularly when the allure of the new book is such a strong pull.

Well, you know how it is. You know better than most. Even if it’s a new edition of an older book, it’s got an edge on the longtime shelf-sitters, doesn’t it. So, if I’m to get specific with goals, how about this:

  • 20 books dating from before 2000
  • 20 gifted books/copies I’ve not yet read
  • 20 other books from my shelves (any date/source)

There are some other projects hovering around the edges, but that’s just how it is around here.

How about you? Have you made specific plans for 2023, or are you planning to NOT plan?