Wednesday, January 18, 2017

On to-reads and re-reading

I mentioned in my last post about my plans for my reading in the year ahead. While I don't like to plan too much (in favor of allowing myself some flexibility and spontaneity in what I read, especially if something interesting comes through the circulation desk here), I do like to have a good stack of to-reads at home. I like to balance picking books from my 'offical' To Read spreadsheet with being able to grab something randomly off the shelf if it catches my eye. I keep my To Read and Read spreadsheets color-coded by genre, in my attempt to keep a rough balance of the types of books I read, throwing in some non-fiction and mysteries in my fantasy and historical fiction choices, for instance.

One of the top items on my To Read list will be Tolkien's Hobbit and the Lord of the Rings series, which I will be re-reading with some friends / colleagues in conjunction with a new series by one of our favorite podcasters, StoryWonk. Hosted by a husband-and-wife team of writers, they've analyzed many great book, tv, and movie series, from Buffy the Vampire Slayer to Outlander to the MCU. Now they're about to dive deep into the Lord of the Rings, first the books and then the movies. I'm really looking forward to re-reading this series and seeing it from a new perspective via both the podcast series and my friends! Feel free to join in as well.

2017 might end up being the year of the series for me. In addition to the Tolkien books and the other series I mentioned last time (Outlander, Dark Tower, V.I. Warshawski, and Anne of Green Gables), I have many others near the top of my To Read list. I've been thinking about giving Agatha Christie a try, which might be a good contrast to the modern setting of the Warshawski mysteries, and once I finish Outlander and Dark Tower, I'll be moving on to the Dresden Files. After Anne of Green Gables, I'll pick another children's series. Perhaps a new one, or I might go back and re-visit my favorite of all time, the Little House books. Though I usually have a hard time justifying re-reading books when I have so many not-read ones on my To Read list, sometimes it's nice to find comfort in an old favorite.

Keep reading! Beth


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