Changes and Goals.

While I have been away from here, I have been reflecting a lot on the blog, the books I have chosen to read, and my goals for this coming year.

To start with, I simply planned on chronicling my reading of a set list of books that were predetermined in advance. Based on everything I researched, I simply selected 250 of the most recognizable classics. Even as I was making the list I was questioning myself. I wasn’t sure if I should slim down the list to a more “manageable” number (like 100), or if I should cut out all dramas, which slim the list down even more. It was a hard task, and inevitably, some books didn’t make it on the list while others did.

In the time since then, I have come to realize that there are 2 authors NOT on the list that should be. Both of these authors are considered among the “classics” and their work is from the same time period. I feel like it is only fair to myself and the credibility of my list that they be added. However, I didn’t want to add more numbers, so I decided, after a lot of indecision, to remove 5 books from the list.

Choosing which books should be removed was difficult. I honestly just wanted to remove the entire remaining Dickens novels….but I figured that would not be a good thing in regards to my goal of reading the classics (classics and Dickens seem to go hand in hand). I eventually decided to remove some of the few volumes of autobiographical work, as well as a few nonfiction titles. Pretty much everything on my list is fiction or drama, so those few volumes seemed to stick out.

So, here are the new changes.

Titles I will be removing:
Origin of Species by Charles Darwin
My Bondage and My Freedom by Frederick Douglass
Autobiography by Benjamin Franklin
Utopia by Thomas More
Autobiography by Malcom X

With the exception of Origin of Species, I have read all of these books in college, so I won’t be missing out on too much.

Here are the authors and titles I will be adding in their place:
Wives and Daughters, Cranford, and Mary Barton by Elizabeth Gaskell (I am leaving North and South off the list since I have watched the BBC mini-series more times than I can count and know nothing of her other work).
The Woman in White and The Moonstone by Wilkie Collins.

I am also going to give myself 5 free passes to take a break from this list to read something NOT on the list. I am doing this for a few reasons…but mainly because there are a lot of great concluding novels coming out in the next year or two to series that I have been following. I don’t want to have to avoid reading other book blogs for a time period because of reviews on those books. Also, I will need that opportunity for a break.
Don’t get me wrong, I love reading these classics, but they take a lot more brain power than a fantasy novel, or a young adult read. My reading pace has slowed considerably and it is hard not to get discouraged.

I am also going to be networking a little more than I was. I kind of “Gave up” on reaching out to other bloggers in the last month or so (the wedding being the main reason), so I want to really pick that up and discover some other new blogs to read.

As a personal “book” oriented goal, I really want to hit the magical 100 again this year, since I only hit 90 last year (a huge disappointment), so I will be trying to pick up some more things, or trying to switch between a few things if I get into a rut.

Anyway, that seems to be all of my thoughts on the blog and blog details for now. I am updating the book list (which was posted back in August) to reflect my new changes.

Happy reading everyone!