I have updated my annual Reading Challenge page so you can see what I read last year as well as keep track of my reading throughout the year, as I will update it from time to time.
I was reflecting on the fact that I have not managed to read as many books this year as I have in recent years. Just before I started to feel a bit annoyed with myself for not doing the thing I love as much I could, I remembered that changes to my eyesight (middle age starting to creep in!) have meant that reading without my reading glasses is particularly uncomfortable. As such, my audiobook number has gone up, as has my reading on Kindle (which allows for bigger fonts and lighting to help night-time reading).
I am vowing to be more organised this year and make sure I take my reading glasses to bed. I also really need to put down my blooming phone in the evenings. It can be such a horrendous waste of my time (my life?). I think my well-being will be better for that regardless of how much more I can read!
Some books I am looking forward to reading this year:
- The First to Die at the End by Adam Silvera (prequel to They Both Die at the End)
- The Marriage Portrait by Maggie O’Farrell (a book based on the Browning poem My Last Duchess which I teach at GCSE and written by the author of one of my favourite books of all time, Hamnet)
- A Swim in a Pond in the Rain by George Saunders (‘a literary masterclass on how to become both a better writer and reader, on what makes great stories work, and what they can tell us about how to live’)
- Beloved by Toni Morrison (on my 23 in 2023 list (and was on my 22 in 2022 list too so I better get reading!))
- My Name is Lucy Barton by Elizabeth Strout (one of my favourite writers)
- Leave the World Behind by Rumaan Alam (I was just going to tuck into this and then the pandemic struck; I am ready now)
- The Glass Hotel by Emily St. John Mandel (another favourite author)
- Persuasion by Jane Austen
- The Tenant of Wildfell Hall by Anne Brontë
Notes From My Day 