Resolutions

Well, I'm back.

Funny how days can slip away from you. Or months. Or years. Well ... I've learned one thing about blogging: it's more difficult than it looks. At least, more time-consuming.

Still, it's long past time that I do something about this place. So: I've tidied it up, changed the layout, and hope to be posting more regularly in the future. By which I basically mean "posting in the future." My aim is to at least check in to list which books I've finished reading in 2009. Hopefully even write a few sentences about them. But definitely maintain a running count of how much I've read.

See, this is what I'm thinking: I have, by rough estimation, about a thousand unread books lying about the house. I want to try to make some inroads into that mass of text this year. The problem, of course, is that while I read books, I also buy them. So it's a running battle to try to stay ahead of myself. I'm hoping a written, public record will actually inspire me to read more books this year than I bring in to the house. I'll mention borrowed books, maybe even write about them, but won't factor them into my running count.

The real trick? Getting enough of a head start to overcome the amount of books I'll be buying at this year's McGill Book Fair. Last year I picked up about 130 volumes of various sorts. So by mid-October, I'll have to have read at least 100 more books than I'll have bought in order to stay in the game.

So that's the plan. Another minor wrinkle: One of my Christmas presents this year was a new and impressive-looking version of Porius, by John Cowper Powys, with the complete text presented as the author intended it. I've got a bunch of other books by Powys, some of which I've read and some of which I have not. I'd like to read and reread as many as possible (Ideally getting through his complete works, but I can't find a library near me that has a copy of Ducdame. Time for an inter-library loan, perhaps) in the order in which they were written. Can I get through to Porius by the end of the year? Seems unlikely. But it's something to keep in mind. A side quest, if you will.

Let's see where this goes.