Reading and Life Update 1, 2024

For many years of my life, I’ve been the type of person who sets annual goals. I used to write these out and prestik them up to my walls. At university, my warden in res was delighted when she checked my dorm room at the end of the first time and found that I had aspired to learn to write with my left hand and read the Lord of the Rings trilogy in 2003 (I’m sorry everyone, I have done neither). You’ll note that my resolutions didn’t really have much to do with any real sense of life success, and instead were completely random. This remains the same 21 years later.

I definitely start each year with a sense of hopefulness and optimism that I’m going to get to several things that I haven’t managed to the years before. So not really ‘new year, new me’, and more like ‘new year, same me, who didn’t do those things on her to-do list last year’ (or in the year 2003, for example).

Reading Goals 2024

This year, one of the key goals that I’ve set is not to buy more books until I’ve read the ones I own. Fellow readers and book addicts will know that this is both daunting (what! no new books! and I have to read ALL these books I already bought) and motivating (I better read these books so that I can buy new books). I am allowing myself to include library books and borrowed books in my TBR pile (so that I can at least get that dopamine rush of newness). On January 1, I walked around my house to the various bookshelves and pulled out a list of fiction, non-fiction, short stories, and essays that I bought with enthusiasm and have been meaning to read. The picture below includes some of those.

I’m quite excited, because, if I do say so myself, I have great taste in books. But I’m also excited to read books that I’ve had for years and might not even like which means I can donate them to a library and … dum dum dum … buy new books sooner than planned. At the moment I’m reading The Whole Brain Child and The Covenant of Water. I hope to have finished them both by the next time I write a little update here.

Work reading this year

I also spend a lot of time reading for my work – not just as a creative writer, but as a gender analyst. At the moment I’m reading research studies and case studies of gender transformative approaches for some work that I’m doing with Pomegranite and Sonke Gender Justice, and I’m reading gender assessments of countries in East and Southern Africa for the World Bank. Very interesting and amazing how so many of the gender challenges are shared across countries, and inspiring to see some of the solutions that have been put in place.

Reading online

Online I’ve read two interesting pieces in the past two weeks – one, A history of the modern exclamation point which explores gender and punctuation (oh me, oh my!) among other things. The other, Men Have No Friends and Women Bear the Burden, considers the impact of harmful masculinities on men’s friendships and how this ends up being women’s problem.

I also do things other than reading

Of course, I am human. I am not only reading. I also swim a few times a week. I’m watching Ted Lasso and doing my annual Yoga With Adriene 30 Day Yoga Journey. In 2020 and 2021, my husband and I did yoga together pretty much every day. Then, we had a baby, and took a hiatus enforced by lack of sleep, human needs, and low motivation. I’m so pleased we’ve started up again this month, because I’m already feeling less achey and old, and it’s a special connection time for the two of us.

But, is she writing?

Am I writing, you might be wondering (she laughs at her presumptuousness). I am, in fits and spurts. I’m also editing. And dreaming. And hoping.

Do you set New Year resolutions? I’d love to know.

Take care of yourselves!
Jen