Reading Resolutions

I follow a fellow blogger over at “Blogging Through Thursday” and here’s the question for today.

Any reading resolutions for the new year? Reading more? (Reading less?) Reading better books? Bigger books? More series? More relaxing books?

And hey, feel free to talk about any other resolutions you might have, too … or why you choose NOT to have any.

I tend to spend far too much time on other things which is time that could be better spent in other ways. I have a huge weakness for The Pioneer Trail on Facebook and have resolved to spend less time on that this year, and I fully intend to spend more time doing more constructive things than tending crops and feeding animals on screen. One of my favourite activities is reading so it makes sense to use some of my Pioneer time doing that instead.

I don’t really have a target list of books to read this year but I have promised myself that I will keep a track of things I read and just keep a list here on my blog. I don’t have any pretentious intentions and I am quite happy to tell you about the pulp/romance/light and fluffy reading I do as well as the more highbrow books that I are on my “got to get round to reading one day” list.

My Kindle is fully loaded with books that are waiting for me to dive in to (thank heavens for the books on 99p offer and the free llist!). My taste varies depending on lots of things (the weather, the season, my mood, things that are happening round me….) but I do like the crime/thriller books that are set in remote locations. I was introduced to that kind of thing when I read my way through  Agatha Christie’s canon of work as a teenager/young adult and I absolutely love the whole “locked room” type crime thriller stories. There seems to be an explosion of Scandinavian crime thrillers at the minute which suits me fine. There’s nothing quite like a Norwegian winter for evoking that sense of being cut off and there being a finite number of characters and suspects in a story.

I do like quirkiness in my books too and the best I’ve found this year was Jutta Profijt’s books featuring  Pascha, a young man who died by falling off a bridge whilst drunk. His spirit cannot pass over and so he is stuck in between and he can only communicate with one person – Martin, the very straight-laced coroner – and the results are part comedy, part tragedy and are hugely entertaining.

I look forward to uncovering more little gems like these this coming year. No doubt I will be sharing my finds with you!!

My only other reading resolution is to visit my local library a bit more often. It’s all very well having books on my Kindle (so, so easy) but I do miss the feel of a real book in my hand now and again. My budget can’t run to keep buying them – not to mention the fact that I’m running out of space in the house to store them – and so borrowing them from the library is the ideal solution.

So my reading resolutions in summary:

• Spending less time on the computer playing games and more time reading
• Reading more Scandinavian crime thrillers
• Get round to reading some of the classics I’ve been promising myself for years
• Searching out quirky and unusual stories
• Visiting my local library more

What about you? Do you have any reading resolutions this year? Drop me a line here as a comment and please visit Booking Through Thursday with your thoughts too.