To Thine Own Self Be True Redux

So...I started a blog last year; yes, I started it.  2013 is the year I will give it life.

2012 marked a year of change for me; I retired from full time teaching and read fewer books than the previous year.  How is that possible?!  "To Thine Own Self Be True" has been reborn as a place to write about my reading.  It may expand into other areas of my life but will start with reading.

My goal for 2012 was to read 85 books; I read 73.  For 2013 I have decided on 75 books averaging out to six per month plus three.  If I manage to read more, that will be delightful!

Being active on BookCrossing and an occasional visitor to LibraryThing, I have used challenges from both websites to encourage my reading - more on that later...to get me started for the new year, I pulled 6 books from the shelf that have been in my collection since I moved into my home in 1994:

• An Unfinished Woman by Lillian Hellman
• The Woman Between the Worlds by F. Gwynplaine MacIntyre
• The Shipping News by E. Annie Proulx
• Picked-up Pieces by John Updike
• A Voice From the Attic by Robertson Davies
• New American Review 11 

And I decided to start my reading year with An Unfinished Woman because that is what I am - an unfinished woman.  This memoir received the National Book Award, and I know there was controversy over some parts of it.  After I finish reading it, I may research what was questioned or challenged; however, this is a book I bought when I was 20 after seeing the film Pentimento and reading the book, another memoir by Hellman.  38 years later...I'm finally reading it.  The passage of years has not dimmed my appreciation for the author and her craft of story telling.

Of the other five books the last three are collections of essays and a "paperback" magazine.  I wanted some books that could be read in "smaller bites" for those moments when I do not have time to savor a novel.  I am also listening to The Kitchen House by Kathleen Grissom.

And now I'll return to my reading with the intention to make entries at least once a week.