Winter Reading List

As the weather gets colder here in Australia, my nesting instincts have kicked in. I'm suddenly into reading again. My interests in reading are quite broad -- from non-fiction of all kinds, to classic literature, to cheesy romance novels, to toddlers' board books. (I like to know what the kids are up to!)

Before I go on with my reading list, I'd like to mention that I joined Goodreads earlier this year. I mainly joined so I could do the yearly reading challenge, but I'd really love to have some more friends there, so if you're a member, please friend me!


To begin my reading quest for this Winter, I've decided to sign up for an online course (sort of crossed with a book club) reading Ulysses by James Joyce. It's generally thought to be one of the hardest books in English to read, and it's certainly one of the longest. I've been wanting to have a crack at it ever since I was 14 and bought a copy of it at the local bookshop to make myself seem smarter. I never got around to the important part of actually reading it, of course, which is why I'm endeavouring to do it now. Hopefully doing it with a group will be fun and keep me motivated.

The course begins on 16th June, so there's still time to sign up if you'd like to do it too.

After that, I want to re-read The Lord of the Rings. I first read it when I was about 13 years old, over a boring Summer at my grandparents' house. That was an incredibly long time ago, and I think it deserves the justice of a re-read. I've decided to add it to my second 101 Things in 1,001 Days, which just happens to start in two weeks (there'll be a blog post about it!). Husband apparently has a copy of the book, but I can't find it, so I decided to buy a nice boxed set. (I recommend reading The Hobbit first as a prequel, but I'm not going to because I only re-read it a couple of years ago.)

Meanwhile, while I'm waiting for the Ulysses course to begin, I'm going to try and reduce the number of books I'm currently reading -- 14, which is a little long even by my standards. I've already given up on a couple, and there are a couple that are more like textbooks so I'm not sure they should count. Here's a short list of ones I'd like to actually finish. They're not the necessarily the hardest, or the easiest, the shortest or the longest. I guess they're just the ones that are piquing my interest right now. There might be reviews coming soon if I feel like writing them.