2011 and 2012: My Literary Travels
In 2011 year I have read 75 books (I was able to determine this quite easily because I have been tagging the books I read ('read in 2011') in my library in Librarything.
This might not be a very impressive number for a lot of people but it is a very good number for me - especially since several of them I considered to be difficult and long academic-type books. The book I remember the most was Kingdoms along the Silk Road by Christopher Beckwith from which I learnt an unexpected amount about all sorts of topics including, of course, the Silk Road.
Looking at the pile (which I have also catalogued by stacking on a particular area of the floor in my study) I can see that I spent much of the year learning about places: the afore-mentioned Silk Road (8 books), and also Japan (30 books), Italy (9 books) and France (9 books).
In 2012 I am intending to go back to China (29 books) - concentrating on both the start of the country (the emperor Chin of 250BC), China of the early 1960s (which has fascinated me ever since I read about that era in the biography of Mao Tse Tung by Li Zhi-Sui), but also the China of today.
I am intending to start with a little self-improvement: by reading My Grammar and I by Caroline Taggart which I have downloaded onto my Kindle.
On the news everyone is predicting a dismal year for Europe and the UK. It is a worrying time, which makes it more important than ever to have a means of escape. For me there is no better escape than a book and would like to wish anyone reading this blog post a very happy reading year!
This might not be a very impressive number for a lot of people but it is a very good number for me - especially since several of them I considered to be difficult and long academic-type books. The book I remember the most was Kingdoms along the Silk Road by Christopher Beckwith from which I learnt an unexpected amount about all sorts of topics including, of course, the Silk Road.
Looking at the pile (which I have also catalogued by stacking on a particular area of the floor in my study) I can see that I spent much of the year learning about places: the afore-mentioned Silk Road (8 books), and also Japan (30 books), Italy (9 books) and France (9 books).
In 2012 I am intending to go back to China (29 books) - concentrating on both the start of the country (the emperor Chin of 250BC), China of the early 1960s (which has fascinated me ever since I read about that era in the biography of Mao Tse Tung by Li Zhi-Sui), but also the China of today.
I am intending to start with a little self-improvement: by reading My Grammar and I by Caroline Taggart which I have downloaded onto my Kindle.
On the news everyone is predicting a dismal year for Europe and the UK. It is a worrying time, which makes it more important than ever to have a means of escape. For me there is no better escape than a book and would like to wish anyone reading this blog post a very happy reading year!
posted by Clare Dudman at 2:40 pm
4 Comments:
Very impressive, Clare. My best reading achievement in 2011 was to (re) read the Palliser novels by Trollope.
I hope you do manage to get to China again, a fascinating country. A very happy new year to you, too.
Thank you, Maxine! A happy new year to you too.
I have to admit I have never read anything by Trollope (or Dickens) maybe I shall this year. But there are so many books, and more coming out all the time. It is a dilemma, albeit a pleasant one.
I lost count of the number of books I read this year, but according to the ones I downloaded to my Kindle I must have consumed over a hundred, many of them new books, or old books I had not read before. Being retired from work allows one to read many more and I keep running out of new stuff to read.
Happy New Year Clare, here's wishing you a wealth of excellent books and interesting journeys.
Well, I was impressed with the number I'd managed to read, but over a hundred - that's amazing...they're challenging books too! And you obviously don't skim-read. Anyway, I'm impressed.
I hope this year brings another excellent cache for your Kindle.
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