New Year’s Resolutions

[osprey_archer]

Looking at my New Year post for 2025, I see that my plans were (1) plant a garden, and (2) compost. (1) I achieved in a small way: I planted herbs, I ate fresh herbs, I planned my guest meals around being able to airily comment “I need some chives” purely in order to waltz out onto the patio and clip the chives fresh. (However, the non-herb parts of the garden grew outside of my control, and I must do a better job with them in 2026.)

I was stymied in (2) by the small size of my yard and the voracity of the local wildlife, who enthusiastically dug up anything I buried to compost. However, a friend has started to compost, so I save my compost things in the freezer and bring them along to add to the heap whenever I visit, so at least it’s all getting composted eventually.

The New Year’s Resolution I actually kept was one I stole from genarti later in January, to read one book from my physical To-Read shelf each month. I achieved this! A couple of months I even read two! One month I DNF’ed the book, but upon consultation with genarti we agreed that, as this also achieves the ultimate goal of removing the book from the Unread Book Club, it still counts.

I also managed to keep pace with any new book purchases as they came in, meaning that the number of books in the Unread Book Club is in fact smaller. So I’ll be continuing with this resolution. At the present rate, I should empty the To-Read shelf in 2027. Naturally I will celebrate with a trip to John K. King Books and return with a massive pile of books with which to restart the Unread Book Club.

Otherwise, my goal for this year is not to start any new reading projects. Read at whim! I do want to continue the Book Log Challenge, because it is a good way to remind myself of authors I’ve been meaning to read more books by… but it often happens that I’ll be reaching the end of a particular list and really just don’t feel like reading anything by the last author or two.

That is fine! I can simply decide to strike that author and move on! The list is an aide-memoire, not a binding document. Maybe I should change the tag to Book Log Frolic rather than Book Log Challenge.

…Having said this, I was all set to strike Project Hail Mary because I keep looking at the book and going “Naaaah don’t feel like it,” but then rachelmanija posted it was one of her favorite books of the year, so… Okay, I have to at least pick it up. Give it twenty pages or so to grab me. That seems only fair, right?

Comments

[asakiyume]

Yes, I definitely feel that DNF counts for removing a book. Sometimes you start something and it's not for you. I think this happened less in childhood because we didn't really know, yet, what was for us? Or rather, we knew what we liked but weren't sure what we didn't like. And there's a strong "finish what's on your plate" mentality. But no. With reading you can really decide you'd rather not finish something.

[osprey_archer]

Yes, I think in childhood most of us are still exploring our tastes and trying to figure out what we like. Plus, kid's books are often shorter, so finishing one is less of an investment.

I was bummed about the one I DNF'd because it was a Maud Hart Lovelace book I bought at the Betsy-Tacy Museum (not a Betsy-Tacy; one of her other books), but hey, the museum is not less supported by the purchase just because I didn't finish reading it.

[sovay]

…Having said this, I was all set to strike Project Hail Mary because I keep looking at the book and going “Naaaah don’t feel like it,” but then rachelmanija posted it was one of her favorite books of the year, so… Okay, I have to at least pick it up. Give it twenty pages or so to grab me. That seems only fair, right?

I enjoyed it: less even for the heroic engineering than for the way that the character development interacted with the pace of revelation. Am skeptical in some ways that it would make a good movie, but it's already locked in.

[osprey_archer]

I liked both the book and the movie of The Martian, so there's every reason to believe I'll like the book Project Hail Mary too (jury still out on movie as it does not yet exist), but for whatever reason I've got a block about actually picking it up and reading it. Truly the human mind is sometimes inexplicable.

[sovay]

(jury still out on movie as it does not yet exist)

It's the structure and the filtration of the point of view through the narrative voice (I said vaguely, skirting spoilers. rot13 to elucidate without details: n jubyr ybg bs pehapul, pynffvpnyyl fsany dhrfgvbaf nobhg vqragvgl naq punenpgre ghea bhg gb or cnpxrq haqre gur fhcresvpvnyyl tbgpun vebal bs n gjvfg naq gurl napuberq gur abiry sbe zr jurer V unq orra zbfgyl pehvfvat ba gur fyvqr ehyr svefg pbagnpg). It works incredibly well on the page and I imagine would work incredibly well in an audio format, whether an audiobook or a drama. I feel it would lose a lot of its effectiveness once the field of information widens from what the narrator can directly tell the audience.

but for whatever reason I've got a block about actually picking it up and reading it. Truly the human mind is sometimes inexplicable.

These things happen! Sometimes just having someone ask what I think of a particular book or movie is enough to render it uncopable.

[rachelmanija]

The audiobook is excellent.