bitesizedreading | Holiday Reading

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bitesizedreading

It's that time of year where every day feels like a Sunday (or for those of us back at work, a Monday). So instead of the usual Wednesday Intended Reading post I thought I'd ask about your end of year/beginning of year reading and recycle some questions from last January.

Feel free to treat the following questions as prompts and answer as many or as few as you like.

How did you make/find time to read in 2016?

Do you think you read more or less than in previous years?

What were your reading highlights of 2016?

Did you reach any reading goals in 2016?

What made up the bulk of your reading in 2016? (e.g. novels, stories, fic, non-fiction, articles, social media, work related texts)

Where did you do most of your reading in 2016?

If you exchange gifts at this time of year, did you give or receive any good books?

Have you managed to get any reading done over the holiday period?

Do you have any reading related resolutions or goals for 2017?

Flat | Top-Level Comments Only

From:

batdina

These questions are perfect for my headspace right now. I'll probably also put this on my own journal too.

How did you make/find time to read in 2016? Reading is a built in part of my job. I'm more often looking for excuses not to read than reasons to read. My biggest battle this year has been reading paper books and reading on an electronic device.

Do you think you read more or less than in previous years? I’m not entirely sure about this. I read fewer books I think (I stopped keeping a list in about July) but I definitely read more pages if that makes sense.

What were your reading highlights of 2016? I read some awesome poetry this year. [Claudia Rankine, Rachel Barenblat, Yehoshua November (thanks Rachel!), Joy Ladin, and a large anthology called Troubling the Line.] Finally, I learned some dynamite Hasidic texts [mostly the Ba’al Shem Tov]. My study partner and I finished a big translation project during the last week of 2016.

Did you reach any reading goals in 2016? I don’t think I set any goals for last year’s reading. I wanted to read authors I hadn’t ever read before, and I did a good bit of that. I also wanted to read more fiction, and unfortunately, that didn’t happen.

What made up the bulk of your reading in 2016? (e.g. novels, stories, fic, non-fiction, articles, social media, work related texts) Hasidic text, poetry, social media, and non-fiction. I read little or no fiction this past year. Most of the Hasidic texts were work related, but I love my work so …

Where did you do most of your reading in 2016? If it was just me and a book or device, I probably read it sitting on the couch in the living room. If it was text or work related, most likely at the kitchen table where there’s room to spread out and have easy access to whatever resources I need.

If you exchange gifts at this time of year, did you give or receive any good books? No books, but I did receive a gift subscription for the digital NY Times.

Have you managed to get any reading done over the holiday period? See above about finishing a large translation project. I also read a couple of books about life in Queer San Francisco and New York in the 80s. Nothing in them pinged me as wrong, which was a pleasant surprise. (Yes, I am old enough to have actually been there.)

Do you have any reading related resolutions or goals for 2017? Aside from a decision to read more fiction this year (a regularly resolution with mixed results) I don’t think so. I’d love to get back to writing a weekly poem though, so perhaps reading something[s] with an eye toward that? I have also embarked on a slow stroll through Shakespeare’s sonnets, which I haven’t done it far too long. If the sonnets resonate I’ll see about reading a few other cycles of them later in the year.