What are your reading goals for 2017?

[ajvenigalla]

What are your reading goals for next year, 2017?

I'm proud to say that of the 50 books I've read so far, some of these 50 books included such titles as: Iliad, Paradise Lost, Odyssey, Samson Agonistes, Scarlet Letter, As I Lay Dying, The Merchant of Venice, Twelfth Night, and Bleak House - all great works. Some of these I might consider rereading next year.

But here are some of my goals:

(1) Read Tolstoy's Anna Karenina and War and Peace (but if I get to the former, I'd be OK), Joyce's Ulysses, Proust's Swann's Way (and maybe attempt on Proust's large masterpiece), and also works like Othello, and William Faulkner's greatest novels. Lolita, Don Quixote, The Idiot, Demons, The Pickwick Papers, D. H. Lawrence's novels, The Hunchback of Notre Dame, Ovid's Metamorphoses, Rabelais's Gargantua and Pantagruel

(2) Try to relearn French, and also get back to Les Miserables; I stopped in the middle, and never returned to it for a while, so I could read other works. And maybe take a stab at learning Homeric Greek and classical Latin.

(3) Some philosophy: Augustine's Confessions, Plato's Symposium, Socrates, Aristotle's Nichomaean Ethics, Longinus's On the Sublime, Pascal's Pensées, Marcus Aurelius

(4) Try to read more of John Milton's major prose works. They're complex, but they're held up to be at least as great as, if not better than, his great poems.

These are just a few of my goals for 2017.

[Lendo]

My goal for 2017 it's the same i had for 2016: continue to discover new authors, read more books of the great one's and keep on having good readings.

And, concerning to this forum, i hope that someday someone post a review of a book written by a portuguese author!

[Polliwog]

I have a short list started for 2017:
Bleak House
Paradise Lost
some collected works of C.S Lewis including The Problem of Pain and Miracles
The Brothers Karamazov

[Vota]

I'm currently reading Tom Jones (loving it!), but in light of the ridiculous and scandalous nature of the 2016 pre- and post- U.S. Election, I am considering prioritizing reading:

1. Politics - Aristotle
2. Political Writings of John Stuart Mill
3. Political Writings of Thomas Paine
4. The Federalist

I have read parts of each of these, but considering the turbulent times we are in, I think for myself, that now is as good a time as any to really develop a basic understanding of politics.

[jay20]

I want to try to get into modern popular literature. I usually have read post WWII French and American fiction, and nonfiction about things like international espionage, narco trafficking, and the mafia. I read John Grisham's The Litigators last year, so in the queue right now I have: The Partner and The Street Lawyer. Any suggestions would be appreciated, other than Grisham. Also, in nonfiction I have The Ugly Renaissance by Alexander Lee and I'm two chapters into Leonardo: The First Scientist by Michael White. I'm trying to learn pre 20th century history - taking suggestions for popular history books.

[Poetaster]

Gosh, so much. Bleeding Edge by Thomas Pynchon, The Silmarilian by J.R.R. Tolkien, a history of Florence because I'm interested in the city and the renaissance, Stoner by John Williams, Wuthering Heights because to my great shame I've not read it yet, and I want to get heavily back into classics because I just love reading and studying the Greeks and Romans.

[bounty]

vota---im reading tom jones too. it took me a while to get into it, but im really enjoying the author's facility with words and ability to express thoughts.

jay---from a contemporary popular literature perspective, ive enjoyed every book ive read by robin cook (medical thrillers), david Baldacci (crime mystery) and vince Flynn (counter terrorism.)

I have less "reading goals" per so, and more book goals---im hoping to hit up a few sales this summer to add to my library.

[Scheherazade]

I will read more Pulitzer winners and 17 authors that I had not read before.

Managed to read 52 books this year so would be thrilled if I read over 50 again.

[kev67]

In 2017 I want to read:

• David Copperfield and The Way We Live Now, which I hoped to read in 2016 but did not get around too.
• The other books on my shelves which I have not read yet (unfortunately I got two more for Christmas);
• The second part of Don Quixote, so I can strike it off the list;
• Our Mutual Friend by Charles Dickens (someone I follow on YouTube keeps raving about this book)
• Old Wives' Tales by Arnold Bennett (neglected masterpiece apparently)
• The Old Man and the Sea by Ernest Hemmingway (my father raved about this book)
• All Quiet on the Western Front by Erich Maria Remarque
• The Canterbury Tales by Geoffrey Chaucer
• Some of Derek Robinson's aerial warfare books.
• Some other WW1 aerial warfare books.
• Maybe Ruth by Mrs Gaskell, about a prostitute apparently.
• One important American book, probably Hucklebury Finn.
• One important French book, maybe The Count of Monte Cristo.
• One important Russian book, maybe something by Dostoevsky.
• Maybe Howards End by E M Forster
• Various non-fiction books.

[mortalterror]

Read a bunch of medieval stuff, romances and sagas. Mahabharata, Tale of Genji, and the famous Chinese novels. Probably some history, religion, and philosophy too.

[Vladimir777]

I'm probably not nearly as well-read as most of the people on this board, so here are some of my reading goals for 2017:

1.) Finish reading Moby-Dick (on Ch. 100)
2.) Finish reading the King James Bible (read the Old Testament already)
3.) Start Shakespeare
4.) Read more in general (probably only read something like 8 books in total last year), both fiction and nonfiction
5.) Read some of the books I have ABOUT reading and literature
6.) Read more poetry
7.) Try to read some of these classics of world literature: Aeneid, The Divine Comedy, Paradise Lost, Don Quixote, War and Peace or Anna Karenina (I read 900 or so pages of War and Peace, but never finished it), Ovid, Madame Bovary, Crime and Punishment, etc.

Will think of more later.

[BeachBooksBlog]

To finish Joyce Ulysses (I'm on Ch. 12) and start reading Moby Dick.

[Vladimir777]

To finish Joyce Ulysses (I'm on Ch. 12) and start reading Moby Dick.

I think you'll definitely like Moby-Dick. I've been reading through it slowly, but it's actually not that challenging of a book, and with lots of hilarious and also beautiful lines in it.

How is Ulysses?

[bounty]

boy Vladimir, I should have read moby dick then with you so that you could have helped me see some of those "hilarious and...beautiful lines in it."

I absolutely loathed the book.

[Adolescent09]

I have to get through Sir Thomas Moore's 'Utopia' but last year I finished Darwin's 'The Origin of Species'. I liked 'Confessions' by St. Augustine and I am trying to get more in touch with my spiritual side so I might tackle 'City of God' and read Dante's 'Inferno' again. I read Milton's 'Paradise Lost' years ago and loved it so this year I'll attempt 'Paradise Regained'. I loved Thomas Hardy's 'Jude the Obscure' so I'll also attempt 'Tess of the d'Ubervilles'. I read Austen's 'Pride and Prejudice' in middle school but never got around to 'Sense and Sensibility'. I too loved 'Bleak House' by Dickens and I'm going to read 'David Copperfield' and 'Our Mutual Friend'.