Welcome to December

At the beginning of this month I decided that I needed more structure to my reading. Mostly I have been reading trashy books by authors I already know and what looks good on the recommended tables of Powell's. There isn't anything wrong with that, necessarily, but I've been struck with the Victorian notion of Improving Myself. 

My new reading program is this: every month, I will read a classic, a nonfiction book, a book in French, a Shakespeare play, and a trashy/genre book. Of course, for the most part I will read a lot more than that, but I'm just forcing myself to read more difficult books that I tend to let fall by the wayside. I read in one of Barbara Kingsolver's essay collections that she only reads great books because there are so many amazing books in the world and so little time in which to read them. If she starts a book and it doesn't wow her, she abandons it. As a committed (prudish) hedonist, I can't fully ascribe to her idea, but I can at least strive to improve some of my reading. (Besides, Kingsolver is a Serious Novelist and my life goal is to become a semi-famous writer of trashy but clever books.)

And so, the winners for December's book list are:

The Ghost Map by Stephen Johnson (Nonfiction)

A Room with a View by E.M. Forster 

Le Petit Prince by Antoine de Saint-Exupéry

Déjà Dead by Kathy Reichs

Othello

A large part of the reason why I'm starting this blog is that at this point I've read so many books that I'm starting to forget them. My innate laziness will be a challenge, but I want to document every book I read, even (especially?) the ones that weren't particularly worth my time. So you will hopefully be hearing a lot from me.