My second New Year’s resolution is to read 40 books. I have had a reading challenge every year for the last eight years. It is a bit like a game I play every year. I evaluate what I read the previous year, look at what my upcoming year looks like with work, vacations and so on and make my estimate of how many books I can finish in a year. This activity, or resolution, or goal however you would like to phrase it, has been very helpful to me. It has taught me how to plan for my year, it helps me see how short a year really is, and of course it helps me learn and keep up with topics that are important to me. I believe that reading is an excellent goal for anyone so here is my resolution plan and some advice for your own reading plan for the year.
I count how many books I read throughout the year. It gives me a sense of accomplishment; It's essentially bragging how smart I am. I only count books that I have started after the new year has started and finished before the current year has ended. This includes hard copy books, eBooks, audiobooks and graphic novels. Whatever published work I read between January 1st and December 31st. On average I read about 34 books a year. If I didn’t count audiobooks my count would be about 17 books.
I try reading four books at any one time during the year. I call it my “rule of four.” I read a History/biography, a fiction, a Devotional/developmental book, and an audiobook. I have found myself falling behind when I try to focus on four books at once so I will switch gears and focus on one book at a time. The exception to my rule is December. During December I finish whatever books I need, to accomplish my goal for the year. If I have already achieved my goal, I will take a break until the New Year. This is in part because I’m a slow reader and don’t believe I will be able to finish certain books in a month. So instead of stressing myself out over Christmas, it can be stressful enough, I use December as a jumping off point for the New Year. I’ll read graphic novels, I’ll plan for the next year’s challenge and I’ll pick my reading plan.
My reading plan is deciding on which historical subjects read “broadly” and which to read “deeply“. To read broadly means that I’m interested in a subject but don’t want to write a book or paper on it. To read deeply is two steps below researching for a book. The past eight years of reading challenges and goals has taught me that I’m not going to remember everything I read. Which means I must read strategically therefore my “broadly” and “deeply” classifiers. An example of a “deeply” goal is, I want to know why people study history. If I were to write a book that would be the book I would want to write. To answer my question I focus on reading historiography and history methodology. An example of a “broadly” goal is that I want to get a big picture of history. I read global, world, and regional histories. Last year I listened to Christendom by Peter Heather, a regional history that dealt with Christianity in Europe during the middle ages, and Empire of the Steppes by Kenneth Harl, a world history of the Eurasian Steppes from the classical period through the late middle ages. I can't remember everything in these books but I can make connections through global history, how one civilization flows into the next.
This year my “deeply” history subjects include American Pop culture (my buddy and I are planning to relaunch the Popstorian podcast this year). I plan to read deeply into Japanese history, I’m reading a couple of books by John W. Dower. In the “broadly” side of things I want to learn about India, so I plan to read John Keay’s book India: A History. One book on Indian history will not make me an expert but hopefully give me a “broad” understanding of the subject. The same could be said for Britain which is the other region that I have a book picked out for. Having two categories for history books allows me to have some fun throughout the year and it not be research all the time. These reading plans help to answer my questions. I also read fiction mostly to break up the study of history. I read whatever I think would enjoy from murder mysteries to Westerns to fantasy to rom coms.
My strategy for fiction this year is simply a stress reliever. I have my first book picked out, Abominable by Dan Simmons. It has been on my to-read list for a LONG time. My philosophy for fiction books is that they should be fun reads. I’m not planning to read a lot of classic lit this year.
I also plan to be more active in reading developmental books. I call this category devotional/developmental for books to help me learn other aspects of my life. Such as understanding the Bible or theology, or learning a practical skill. My first will be Blogging for Dummies by Amy Lupold Bair. It is one of my New Year Resolutions to improve my blog so it makes sense to read a book to achieve that goal.
My audiobooks are a catch all category, some fiction, some nonfiction. I listen to whatever I find at my public library or on the app, Libby. Different libraries have different services such as Hoopla but whatever the app they are great resources to find audiobooks. My only strategy for audiobooks is to find a book that I’m interested in. Fiction or nonfiction, I listen on my work commute, running errands or while performing chores around the house. It helps with my above stated goals to “broadly read of world history and destress throughout the year. It also serves as a nice treat while accomplishing some of the less than pleasant necessities of life, like doing the dishes.
I enjoy reading, perhaps I enjoy planning to read more. Having a plan in place doesn’t mean that I actually will read 40 books or have a broad understanding of Indian history, but having a plan in place has definitely helped me in the last eight years. This New Year resolution has helped me to plan for the year, kept me focused on history and it reminds me to take advantage of the time we have. A year goes by very fast, I try to accomplish what I can during that time, it will be December 31st again soon.
Here are some books that I mentioned above that plan to read in the coming year.
Historiography:
Cohen, Richard. Making History: The Storytellers Who Shaped the Past. New York: Simon & Schuster, 2022.
Regional histories:
Dower, John W. Embracing Defeat: Japan in the Wake of World War II. New York: Norton the New Press, 1999.
Fraser, Rebecca. The Story of Britain: From the Romans to the Present: A Narrative History. New York: WW Norton & Company, Inc., 2003.
Keay, John. India: A History. New York: Grove Press, 2000.
Fiction:
Simmons, Dan. The Abominable. New York: Little Brown and Company, 2013.
Development:
Bair, Amy Lupold. Blogging for Dummies 6th Edition. Hoboken, NJ: John Wiley & Sons, Inc., 2016.
Here is the link for more information about the Libby App.
