the year of fiction
For the past two years I have set a reading goal, declaring in January the number of books I want to read over the course of the year. This goal setting began as I was finally coming to the end of my Master’s degree, knowing that I would once again have more time for my own reading.
I have always loved books, and loved reading. And I also consume a large volume of information through other sources: news in various formats, magazines, journal articles, documentaries, podcasts, endless articles and musings posted on the interwebs… there are so many ways to learn and hear stories now, it can be overwhelming. The level of information we are now bombarded with in the course of one day was unthinkable merely twenty years ago.
Whilst I started many books, dipping in and out of their pages, I had begun to find that I was finishing few. I suppose I still read more than many people do, but that wasn’t the point. Wanting to focus on finishing more books, I set my first reading goal.
My top two strengths are intellection and input. Which is to say that I am inquisitive, I like to think, and I like to collect things - in my case, information. I have the kind of mind that finds so very many things interesting. I believe that this is what kept me bubbling along whilst Melbourne was in some form of lock down for more than half of 2020. I was never bored, because there was always something to learn, something to ponder.
In 2019, I met my reading goal, and so for 2020 I increased it. Whilst I missed this revised goal, I still read more books that I had in 2019. However, I found myself feeling a little wary about having a reading goal. I love reading; I didn’t want it to feel like something on my to do list, or to bypass some weighty tome that I actually wanted to read because I needed to ‘get through more books’ - ugh.
As 2020 came to a close, it also occurred to me that so much of what I was reading was non-fiction. I missed fiction. I missed the delicious and deeply restorative experience of spending an entire day reading a novel. I missed getting lost in a story that was created in the mind of someone else.
*
Around the same time, I was reflecting on my issues with sleep. For as long as I can remember, I have had trouble with sleep. Specifically, with going to sleep. Naturally a night owl, I like going to bed late. And when I do finally go to bed, my mind considers this a marvellous opportunity to sift through a cornucopia of thoughts on a variety of random topics. Which makes mornings — difficult.
The problem with this is that I have realised that if I am ever going to get anything done, I need to do so in the morning. I need a morning routine. However, having experimented with this for the final month or so of 2020, I was reminded that without enough sleep, the morning routine quickly fails.
Perhaps it should have been obvious, but in order to have a morning routine, I need an evening routine. And if I am to stop looking at screens an hour before bed, as recommended by pretty much everyone writing about sleep in this era of mobile phones and laptops and iPads, I realise that this is the perfect opportunity for more fiction reading.
*
I have scanned through my piles of unread books, extracting novels I hope to read this year. Some of the books I have unearthed have been on my shelves for many years (Lost City Radio by Daniel Alarcón, purchased when it was first published in 2007, and Louis de Bernières’ Captain Corelli’s Mandolin, given to me by a friend leaving the country at least a decade ago). Others I bought just this week (the two novels of Min Jin Lee, Free Food for Millionaires and Pachinko, Sorrow and Bliss by Meg Mason, and Nick Hornby’s Just Like You). There are multiple titles from Brit Bennet (The Mothers, The Vanishing Half), Ian McEwan (Saturday, On Chesil Beach) and Siri Hustvedt (What I Loved, The Sorrows of an American, The Summer Without Men). There is a book I bought for its title alone (The Spinster Diaries by Gina Fattore), another (The Shadow of the Wind) I purchased after a barrister I chatted to on a tram recommended that I read its author, Carlos Ruiz Zafrón, and then the slim hardback novel I bought because, well, yes, I love the cover (Kaouther Adimi’s A Bookshop in Algiers). Currently, there are 38 novels stacked on my kitchen table. I have no doubt this number will continue to grow.
*
This year I will not set a reading target. Instead, I declare 2021 The Year of Fiction.