I usually read a fair bit every year, but I’m terrible about tracking and reviewing what I read.  I had a good start last year, but at some point I stopped.  I think I can name the point – I had read an horror anthology, and was attempting to summarize the stories therein.  Yeah.  Some of them were bland, so I quit. There was also a lot of rereading last year.  I’m a proponent of rereading, particularly for authors.  You can learn a lot from rereading – on the other hand, not every book deserves more than one pass.  However, the rereading I was doing qualified more as a comfort reading: I wasn’t truly absorbing the words or noticing anything new.

This year my goal is to read books I already own.  Part of this is because I’ve amassed quite a number of books I’ve then ignored, and as I’ve also decided to trim my spending it seems wise to focus on what I already own.  I mostly want to read physical books, as I have a lot and would like to pare them down, but I don’t want to get rid of them until I’ve at least looked at them.  I’ll keep them if there’s something of value or interest (and hence a need to reference if not reread).  Otherwise, they are better going off to find someone who does love them.  This excludes reference books, unless they are wholly out of date.

If I love the book enough, I will try to find the ebook version.  I find ebooks easier to read – at least for fiction books that are not heavy on illustration (hence not getting rid of reference books).  And if I’m going to reread it, I might as well have it in the format I prefer.  Obviously I’m going to keep anything I have that’s autographed, but having an ebook copy of those is vital so the signed books stay as pristine as possible.

I know people who faint from horror at the thought of getting rid of books, and part of me gets that.  For one, it used to be so much harder to find some books.  If you didn’t keep the copy you had you might never see that book again, or it might take forever to find it.  One of the best things about ebooks is  that I now can find copies of books I thought I’d never see again.  Case in point: Things Invisible to See, by Nancy Willard.  I originally read this from my school library, and found a battered copy (and lost my mind) at some garage sale.  Yay!  But I can only reread that so often because it’s a cheap paperback that’s falling apart.  I bought it the moment it was available as an ebook.  Now I can reread it forever! And buy it for friends (if I love a book enough that I think others need to read it, I give it to them).

I do mourn physical books – it’s so interesting to browse someone’s library and learn about them that way (What books do they have? How do they organize them?).  But I’ve had things happen to physical books (water damage, mold) and it’s nice to not have that worry.  Also, right now we just don’t have the space for a large number of books, nor the means to buy large numbers of bookshelves.

Anyhow.  I was mentioning this resolution to one of my writing buddies.  Apparently it’s in the air – both she and a mutual friend have the same resolution.

There are other resolutions, of course.  I’m not sure resolution is the best word – they fill more like realizations.