New Year's Reading Resolutions

Forget other ways of improving our lives, we're booksellers so our resolutions are focused on reading.  This year we've got some pretty grand plans.  Ami is endeavoring to get up earlier everyday, perhaps so she can read more.  And Mark B. is determined to read more of the books he already owns. He says he wants to read further into his collection of books he has owned for years.  Though he did tell me this as he was buying a brand new book.

Katherine wants to focus less on how many books she reads over the year and more on the quality of the books (for the record, I already think she does a pretty good job of this since she can easily give up on a book she isn't enjoying; something I am terrible at).  But she says her main reading (related) resolution is to write more.  Stories, observations, poems, folk songs, letters; 2014 is the year of putting pen to paper for Katherine.  As a way of achieving this goal, she plans to fill six whole Moleskine journals.  But don't be too intimidated, it's the little 3 x 5, 64 pagers.

Alex says if his 2014 resolution was the same as his 2013 resolution, to read more women authors, then his next book would be The Goldfinch by Donna Tartt (another shameless Goldfinch plug! man, I love that book).  But his actual resolution is to read more Northwest history.  He's
gonna start with Betty MacDonald's classic The Egg and I, and then move on to The Curve of Time by M. Wylie Blanchet.  This one's about a widow who packs up her five kids in a boat and explores the coastline of the Northwest. Fascinating!

As for me (Erin B), I have a lot of reading plans. This year I resolve to read more nonfiction and more of the books that I've missed.  Unbelievably, I've never read The Bell Jar, so that's on the list.  But my primary resolution I came upon while putting together my 2013 top ten list of books.  Looking at the authors on that list, I realized that all of them are white.  No people color.  So that's my goal.  To add some diversity and perspective to my reading and read more authors of color. My first book of the new year is Kindred by Octavia Butler (who I just learned lived in Lake Forest Park!)

What's your reading resolution this year?  Don't have one?  Well come on out tomorrow, for our New Year's Day Sale, and we'll help you find one! Nothing says "Happy New Year" like 20% off everything at your favorite independent bookstore!  Both locations!