2014 Reads, Update #1

Well, the first quarter of the year has passed and the first update on how my reading is going is here.  I have to say it’s going great.  I’m ahead of all my reading goals.  You can read my reading plans for 2014 here.  Of course it helps that I was on vacation for over a week.

To date I’ve read seven short stories (better than the two per month goal), three full books (a memoir, a novel, and an exchange of letters), and two books of the Old Testament.  That’s about on goal, but I’m so well into the currently reading list that a number of those books are near complete.  Unplanned addition was a book (84, Charing Cross Road) of letter exchanges over the post WWII years by a New York City writer Helene Hanff and the friends she made at a London bookstore.  It was recommended by a friend and I thought it would make a great little read while on vacation. 

My Lenten reads are both over three-quarters read: Thomas à Kempis’s The Imitation of Christ and a recent addition that was unmentioned, Happy Catholic by Julie Davis.  Yes, the Thomas à Kempis’ is as dry as forewarned, and so I decided to add a pick-me-up for Lent and went with a book from one of my favorite bloggers, Julie Davis at Happy Catholic.   

Another unplanned addition was a recently published book (Prue Shaw’s Reading Dante) on Dante’s Divine Comedy that got such good reviews I was enticed to pick it up.  I’m two thirds into it.  I’m well into the Hopkin’s poetry and only about 15% into Goldworthy’s Julius Caesar.   But those books will be stretched out to last the year.  I started Les Misérables, and in a flash I’m fifty pages in; it’s good reading!  For this year I’m only planning to read the first volume of Hugo’s epic work, titled Fantine, but if it goes this fast I may add to that.   

Here’s the status and near term plans. 

Completed: 

“The Doom of the Griffiths,” a short story by Elizabeth Gaskell.

The Book of Tobit, a book of the Old Testament.

“Rappaccini’s Daughter,” a short story by Nathaniel Hawthorne.

Life on the Mississippi, a memoir by Mark Twain.

The Book of Judith, a book of the Old Testament.

“The Ransom of Red Chief,” a short story by O. Henry.

Washington Square, a novel by Henry James.

84, Charing Cross Road, a collection of correspondence by Helene Hanff.

“Fifty Grand,” a short story by Ernest Hemingway.

“A Simple Enquiry,” a short story by Ernest Hemingway.

“The Pitcher,” a short story by Andre Debus.

“After Twenty Years,” a short story by O. Henry.

 

Currently Reading: 

Gerard Manly Hopkins: Poems and Prose, Selected and Edited by W. H. Gardner.

Julius Caesar: Life of a Colossus, by Adrian Goldsworthy.

Reading Dante: From Here to Eternity, a non-fiction work of literary criticism by Prue, Shaw.

The Imitation of Christ, a non-fiction devotional by Thomas à Kempis.

Happy Catholic, a non-fiction devotional by Julie Davis.

Fantine, the 1^st Volume of Les Misérables, a novel by Victor Hugo.

 

Upcoming Plans: 

 “Paul’s Case,” a short story by Willa Cather.

“Wee Willie Winkie,” a short story by Rudyard Kipling.

"Sredni Vashtar,” a short story by Saki (H.H. Munro).

“The Wood-Sprite,” a short story by Vladimir Nabokov.

“Russian Spoken Here,” a short story by Vladimir Nabokov.

The Book of Esther, a book of the Old Testament.

Some Do Not…, the 1^st novel of the Parade’s End Trilogy by Ford Madox Ford.