2012 Reading Reflections
I already listed my reading in 2012 here, but it’s in a form that’s essentially useless to me: alphabetical by author. I was curious to go back and list the books in the order they were read, and think about the progression of subjects that that constituted 2012.
There’s definitely a reading trail here, from one preoccupation to another. For the first time, there is also a reading hiatus of sorts. It happened over the summer, when my nature and photography interests overwhelmed my bibliolatry. I wonder if that will happen again. I wonder if it served any purpose.
The major question (or frustration) I have is, how do I make what I’ve read last? Some of these books were a really big deal to me when I read them; they filled my thoughts and stirred me in one direction or another. Some of them suggested change in some significant way. But it’s hard to tell whether all that reading passion has amounted to much.
Wendell Berry speaks of education as “furnishing the mind.” Reading surely does this. Actually I think of it more interactively as “forming” the mind. Sometimes, it seems that all I carry away with me is a phrase here or there — like an inner hyperlink that can be paused over at some point in the future to bring back whole tracts of the thought world of a book. But there is so much that gets missed.
January:
I started the year focused on how to incorporate spiritual awareness moment-by-moment. An interest in introversion appears here too.
February:
I wrapped up my exploration of introversion and veered into nature and autobiography this month.
March:
- The Comstocks of Cornell
- Jayber Crow
- Writing a Woman’s Life
- When I was a Child I Read Books
- A Room of One’s Own
In March I was definitely focused on biography/autobiography. I was interested in the way Mrs. Comstock conceived of her life story as a member of a marriage partnership, and the way she succeeded in a man’s world. Three of the other books that month were about women’s autobiography, and one was about a fictional man’s (Jayber’s).
April:
Two Buechner novels and one L’Engle book. This month started with free-range Christians — then moved into the more orthodox with Tozer. This was Easter month and I was looking for new life spiritually, I think.
May:
This was the month the weather got nice, and we ventured into the great outdoors to read the book of nature!
June:
I wrapped up the season of revisiting Tolkien and read a quickie on the practical aspects of writing. I also read Flyaway, a book about a wild bird rehabilitator, and reviewed it at my nature blog.
July:
Nothing listed but some read-alouds this month. One post for the whole month!
August:
Two YA reads and Gifts of an Eagle. The outdoor nature interest informs my reading here.
September:
Nature, and literature for younger readers. My thoughts are still off the page and into the camera viewfinder and the trail.
October:
- Green Dolphin Street
- True Community
- Anne of Green Gables (read-aloud)
My thoughts began to move back inside. GDS is an Elizabeth Goudge novel; I followed it with an unsuccessful attempt at her Child from the Sea. True Community focuses on the church ideal.
November:
I definitely had a biblical theme going in my reading this month.
December:
I ended the year reading about other people’s church experience. In one last surge of effort, I also took up C.S. Lewis’s last book, a treatise on medieval and renaissance literature, and actually finished it (and loved it) this time.
