As well as running and blogging every day I have another daft habit game I’m playing with myself: ahead of my 50th birthday in two years’ time I’m reading a book from every year of my life.
I started back in 1969 with Slaughterhouse-Five, and I’ve taken in so far Grendel, The Dice Man, Stepford Wives, and Zen and the Art of Motorcycle Maintenance.
I’ve tried to pick books that have somehow slipped through the net, books I’d always meant to read but somehow hadn’t (yet) got round to. I’m trying out new authors when I can, but occasionally I’ve allowed myself the indulgence of an unknown book by a favourite author (such as the current read, The Wind’s Twelve Quarters, a collection of stories by Ursula Le Guin).
Only once have I come unstuck, with Myths to Live By by Joseph Campbell, which was fascinating for the first 300 pages or so but after that so erudite, repetitive and, well, LONG, that I gave up and turned instead to Madeleine L’Engle, The Wind in the Door, for 1975. It’s my game, I make the rules and I can change them any time I like if they’re not serving me.
I read so many business books that it’s hard to find time for other forms of literature – but I’m nearly always glad when I do.
If you want to have a peek at what’s coming – and maybe make some suggestions – the full list is up at GoodReads: https://www.goodreads.com/review/list/34626998-alison-jones?shelf=every-year-of-my-life. It’s not complete yet, but then neither (I hope) is my life…