The value of having long reading projects and keeping track of them
The idea for this article came to me after reading a Substack post by Jared Henderson. Having a to-be-read pile of books and multiple reading projects is probably very familiar to every book enthusiast. Some of these projects are short and some may take our whole life. But by creating these kinds of projects, one will always have something to look forward to.
I love learning through philosophical books, discovering literature in general, and reading interesting and worthwhile genre fiction (mostly horror). I also often read multiple books at the same time (currently ten, which is way too much) and try to work on these various projects of mine simultaneously.
Usually, I keep these reading goals and projects in my reading journal or in my mind. But now, I decided to put some of these on my blog to have a better overview and maybe inspire some of you to think about your own.
One of the oldest and longest projects of mine is reading all of the works of Stephen King. He has always been my favourite writer and I see it as a real challenge to get through his books (around 65 novels, 200 short stories and a couple of non-fiction). So, I decided to finally share The Stephen King Project on my website and keep track there on how many of his books I have read so far.
A short-term project that I’m working on is to read The Lord of the Rings trilogy. I’ve already read the first two books, so only the last one (The Return of the King) remains. I would love to reread The Hobbit as well. I think this should be achieved before the end of the year. Short-term projects are satisfying because they give quicker results. But most of my reading projects remain long-term.
The next long-term example would be reading the Bible (Authorized King James Version with Apocrypha) for literary purposes. And two books that are related to the Bible: Dante’s Divine Comedy and Milton’s Paradise Lost. This will take me a long time but that’s okay. The Bible has been influential on many other literary works and is often referenced by famous writers such as Dostoyevsky. I’m familiar with some of the stories, but I still have a huge gap in my knowledge to fill.
Reading literature from different countries and discovering the classics should also be on this reading project list. Due to my interest in Japanese culture and language, I’m also interested in Japanese literature. Indeed through literature one explores more of the culture. I was immensely inspired by an article about the 75 best Japanese authors and their books and my own TBR list is heavily influenced by this. For this year, I’m looking forward to reading 1Q84 by Haruki Murakami.
Online book clubs and read-along challenges help me in finding new reading projects (you can never have too many… right?). I would like to mention two of these. One I just started; a read-along of Aristotle’s Nicomachean Ethics hosted by the same Jared Henderson as mentioned in the beginning. Reading philosophical books can be difficult on your own, especially old classics such as this one. So a read-along with a fixed schedule and some insights and reflections could be a valuable resource.
I have one online book club in particular that I like to participate in (this is my second year), even though I often don’t get around to reading all of the planned books, it is still fun and insightful. The book club is hosted on YouTube by Emmie and CarolynMarieReads and is called A Game of Tomes. It focuses mostly on classics and literary fiction. I combine their planned books with my own reading project of reading classics and literature from different countries.
Even though I would love to read a piece of literature from every country, for the time being, I’m mostly focused on Japanese and Russian literature. I was born in Russia and I wish to read most of the major works from my country, preferably in Russian. Currently, I’m reading The Brothers Karamazov (hope to finish it this July); such a long and complex classic can be a reading project of its own. I’ve been reading this novel for over a year now!
Finally, I would like to reread House of Leaves by Mark Z. Danielewski. I read this novel in 2020 and it has been the most influential book for me, but also the most difficult one to get through. I think that this book still has a lot of details to offer which I have missed the first time, so rereading it would be worthwhile. However, I know that this novel would give me anxiety and insomnia again. So it would be better to pick it up when I’m less busy and have more time to focus only on reading this book.
My rereading list in general is growing quickly because I think that some books should be read more than once. For some more complex novels, the first reading feels more like an introduction to the text because you will miss a lot of details and not understand everything immediately. Thus a reread is often necessary. Other books are just fun to reread because of their hopeful and cheerful vibe, for example, The Hobbit.
It is important to have short and long-term projects and to keep exploring further in the world of fiction and non-fiction. The more you read, the more you know and want to read even more. This website of mine is also a long-term project. Reading will always be a part of my life and thus I will always have something to write about. A great inspiration for this website has been a website by Maria Popova: The Marginalian. If you never heard of it, check it out! It should be known by all book lovers out there. The work that she has put into creating this valuable reading resource is astonishing. It functions as a literary Wikipedia mixed with a lot of poetry.
Let me know in the comments what your reading projects are and if you also have a never-ending TBR list.
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