Reading in 2012

Every year as it draws closer to the next I start to reflect on what I have read and what I want to read. I always make a lot of goals but I am not very good at following through with them.  This year I am trying to make some easier goals that fall more in line with my natural reading, rather than expanding out to read something new.  In the past I have tried to read more book with characters from diverse ethnic backgrounds and while I now have used that experience to help inform future reading choices I don’t want to worry about focusing on reading a certain number of books in a year.  Also diversity is hard to find when it comes to science fiction specifically, there are very few books that really deal with race or show other cultures and it is even harder to know which ones those will be going into the reading.

 

This year I know I am going to be reading a few more fairytale retellings than I have in the past few years. This has been an interest of mine for a while, but recently I haven’t been making  point to read these type of books. Ever since I heard about Ashley from Basically Books dedicating 2 weeks in April to these types of stories I haven’t been able to get the idea of reading them out of my head. There are so many to choose from it is definitely going to be hard to decide what to read, but it is also fun to use these readings as  reason to research the original folk and fairytales. I have a lot of these books already and here are some I am thinking about reading.

 

Fairest by Gail Carson Levine	East by Edith Pattou	Briar Rose by Jane Yolen	Sisters Red by Jackson Pearce	Sun and Moon, Ice and Snow by Jessica Day George

What fairytale retellings have you enjoyed reading? What do you think it is about these types of stories that is so appealing? I think we like stories that surprise us and fairy tales are often such a part of our ingrained culture it is fun to see how they can be changed.

 

 

Two of my favorite times of the year blog wise are February and August because these are the months that Lenore dedicates the WHOLE month(s) talking about dystopian novels and interview authors and having amazing giveaways.  As most of my readers know I am a HUGE dystopian buff. I have a huge pile of dystopian books to read here, especially young adult ones.  Here are  few I am thinking about reading.

 

Fahrenheit 451 by Ray Bradbury	Grace by Elizabeth Scott	The Unit by Ninni Holmqvist	The Line by Teri Hall

 

 

I was having a great discussion on Twitter that reminded me how much I love books that tie In with music some how. I can really only think of two books that I have read that tie in with contemporary music. Audrey, Wait! and Getting Over Jack Wagner were both particularly fun reads. After reading them close together I went on a book buying spree to get any music related book I could. Unfortunately the spree didn’t last that long and I only ended up with a handful of books. Here is a list of some of the books I already have to read that are related to music.

 

I Wanna Be Your Joey Ramone by Stephanie Kuehnert	Guitar Girl by Sarra Manning	Drums, Girls, and Dangerous Pie by Jordan Sonnenblick

 

 

Do you have any reading goals or books you would like to focus on reading?  I hope that I get a lot of reading done in 2012. Coming off the back of one of my worst reading years ever I need a lot of change in my life.  Even as I type this I am finding it hard to motivate myself to read. What do you do when this happens to you?

 

Do you have any books in these categories that I definitely should not miss? Please make sure you let me know in the comments and I will see what I can do!