Reading Goals of 2017 and 2018

This year, I started out with big reading plans. Here's how I did with them:

1. Learn from C.S. Lewis

At the beginning of the year, I lined up all of our C.S. Lewis books in chronological order. At the time, I said "I'm pretty sure I will not get through all of them this year." Well, I didn't. I got through five, and am still working through another two.

The Pilgrim's Regress (1933)
Out of the Silent Planet (1938)
The Problem of Pain (1940)
The Screwtape Letters (1942)
Perelandra (1943)

The Abolition of Man (1943) (in progress)

That Hideous Strength (1945) (in progress)

Now that I know my pace, I am setting a new goal of reading seven more C.S. Lewis books in 2018 in addition to finishing the ones in progress.

The Great Divorce (1945)
George MacDonald: An Anthology (1946)
Miracles (1947)
The Weight of Glory (1948)
The Lion, The Witch and the Wardrobe (1950)
Prince Caspian (1951)
The Voyage of the Dawn Treader (1952)

2. Keep up with my book clubs.

I read some good books with my book clubs this year! With them, I finished 

The Iliad

The Brothers Karamazov

The Innocence of Father Brown

Northanger Abbey

Oliver Twist

The Man Who Was Thursday

In 2018, we are continuing with The Odyssey and reading Wives and Daughters by Elizabeth Gaskell. I anticipate we will read an additional four or five classics or other worthy books.

3. Keep reading Charlotte Mason.

I finished following Brandy Vencel's study guide Start Here with an online study group. It was great! Using it, I read For the Children's Sake and most of Charlotte Mason's Volume 6. Then, in the summer I read through Charlotte Mason's Volume 3 again: School Education. 

I also read Laurie Bestvater's The Living Page. What a great addition to any Charlotte Mason library! It is carefully researched, beautifully written, and clearly demonstrated.

In 2018, I plan to read Charlotte Mason's Volume 2: Parents and Children. Also, in our local Charlotte Mason study group, we're watching the video series from Ambleside Schools International and reading the accompanying study guides which contain passages from Charlotte Mason's volumes.

4. Pre-read at least some of next year's school books for SA.

Well, I did do this, but often it was the night before. In other words, I did not get very far ahead of him. At all. But still, I read some excellent books. Some of my favourites were:

Robinson Crusoe (almost finished)

"MacBeth"

Romulus (Plutarch)

Looking ahead into 2018, I know I need to allot a significant amount of time to pre-reading, especially considering that SA is now at an age that he will be reading most of his school books on his own. Beginning Term 2 of Year 4, I will be reading

"Twelfth Night"

Publicola (Plutarch)

George Washington's World

Kidnapped

The Ocean of Truth

Madam How and Lady Why (already in progress)

Age of Fable (in progress)

Great Canadian Adventures (in progress)

And of course, later in 2018 I will be beginning Ambleside Online Year 5 as well. By necessity, this will likely become my primary reading goal. 

5. Read through the ever-expanding list of books people have recommended and/or lent to me.

I didn't do very well with this in 2017. I have so much to read, I often don't prioritize books that other people want me to read. The one I did manage to finish was probably one of my least favourite books of the year (Wild at Heart). So I'm going to change this goal in 2018:

5. Read books on my own shelves that I have been wanting to read but just haven't gotten to yet.

Krakatoa (Winchester) (in progress)

John Adams (McCullough)

Respectable Sins (Bridges)

The Protestant Reformation (Hillerbrand) OR Great Voices of the Reformation (Fosdick)

The Story of Philosophy (Durant)

The Soul of Science (Pearcey)

Delighting in the Trinity (Reeves)

The Book That Made Your World (Mangalwadi)

As these are all pretty hefty, I doubt I'll get through more than four or five on this list. Still, it's good to set a goal, as if I don't, I may not read any of them.

I know I haven't listed any light reading, and not much fiction. That's not because I won't be reading any. Those just tend to be more spontaneous choices. I will also probably be reading a fair amount of books on health this year, but I can't tell exactly what direction that will take at this point. (psoriasis, autoimmune disease, diet...)

6. Read for the Challies' 2018 Reading Challenge

This is almost an afterthought for me this year...I love the idea of it, but with so much else to read I'm not sure how far I'll get. Still, I would like to check off the categories of a "Light" reader (and it's great that I can use books that I'm already reading for other goals to check off several of them.). The categories are:

A biography

A book about Christian Living

A book published in 2018

A book by an author who is no longer alive

A novel

A book for teens or young adults

A book more than 100 years old

A book targeted at the opposite gender

A book your best friend recommends

A book with at least 400 pages

A book of your choice

A book about theology

A book about current events

Do you make reading plans, or do you just read whatever comes your way? I like planning for about half of my reading, and allowing the rest to be more spontaneous.

My Year in Books 2017 (Goodreads)

My Top Ten Books of 2016

My Personal C.S. Lewis Reading Plan

One of my reading goals for this year is to read through all of the C.S. Lewis books on my shelves. When I made my goal, I assumed we probably had most of the books he wrote. I assumed wrong, but we do have 25, and I'm happy to start with that. I'm pretty sure I will not get through all of them this year. I will dive in and see how far I get.


I finished reading Terry Glaspey's book C.S. Lewis: His Life & Thought. It was short and sweet. I especially enjoyed the biographical portion, and almost wish I'd read a more extensive biography. The part on Lewis' thought was more disjointed and read like a series of short articles on various topics. Still, it was easy to read and worked well as an introduction.

Using an appendix in Glaspey's book, I arranged all the Lewis books on my shelves in chronological order. Here's what I have:

The Pilgrim's Regress (1933)
Out of the Silent Planet (1938)
The Problem of Pain (1940)
The Screwtape Letters (1942)
The Abolition of Man (1943)
Perelandra (1943)
That Hideous Strength (1945)
The Great Divorce (1945)
George MacDonald: An Anthology (1946)
Miracles (1947)
The Weight of Glory (1948)
The Lion, The Witch and the Wardrobe (1950)
Prince Caspian (1951)
The Voyage of the Dawn Treader (1952)
Mere Christianity (1952)
The Silver Chair (1953)
The Horse and His Boy (1954)
The Magician's Nephew (1955)
Surprised by Joy (1955)
The Last Battle (1956)
Till We Have Faces (1956)
The Four Loves (1960)
The World's Last Night and Other Essays (1960) (I don't have this but my public library does.)
A Grief Observed (1961) (I will buy this.)
Letters to Malcolm: Chiefly on Prayer (1964)
The Discarded Image (1964)
Present Concerns (1986) (My public library has this.)
Compelling Reason (1996)

Of these, I have read only the Chronicles of Narnia, Till We Have Faces, Screwtape Letters, The Great Divorce, and A Grief Observed. I know I've dipped into a few more over the years, but my memory of them is gone now.

So here I go!

I want to hear from you. What is your favourite book by C.S. Lewis, and why?

2017 Reading Goals

I have joined Tim Challies' 2017 Christian Reading Challenge again. It was so helpful in getting me reading again last year. I went from reading almost nothing in 2015 to reading 65 books for the challenge (plus a few extra that didn't fit into the categories in the challenge.). Like last year, I will not follow the challenge in order, but read whatever I want and fit the books into whatever category seems best. However, I do have some specific goals for the year:

1. Learn from C.S. Lewis. I am beginning with a biography, then I will go through the C.S. Lewis books on my shelves in chronological order. I may not have every single one, but I have most of them. I am not putting an end date on this project. It may take more than a year or two, but this is the year I'll get started. I am working on my first book already, a biography entitled C.S. Lewis: His Life and Thought by Terry Glaspey. I came across it at a thrift store last week, and picked it up because the introduction was written by George Grant, a voice I trust. I'm not sure how it compares to other biographies, but so far it is concise and well-written, and it is inspiring me to read all of C.S. Lewis's books.

2. Keep up with my book clubs. I'm part of two local homeschool mom book clubs, though there is considerable overlap in the membership. In one, we are going through the Iliad. We will finish that this month, have a little break, then begin the Odyssey. In the other, we read mostly classics, though we've been known to throw in some Wendell Berry and Elizabeth Goudge. Our first book for the year will be The Brothers Karamazov. I have never read any Russian literature before, so this is exciting! I anticipate we will read five or six classics by the end of the year.

3. Keep reading Charlotte Mason. Right now I am doing that with an online study group using  Start Here by Brandy Vencel of Afterthoughts as a guide.

4. Pre-read at least some of next year's school books for SA(8). I'll be reading from Ambleside Online's Year 4 booklist. This is becoming more and more important as SA begins to read more of his own school books. I'll start with Kingsley's Madam How and Lady Why and Bulfinch's The Age of Fable.

5. Read through the ever-expanding list of books people have recommended and/or lent to me. This is where I start getting a bit overwhelmed. Number one on the list is pure fun, though: The Complete Father Brown by Chesterton. Then there is The Book That Made Your World, a gift from my parents. I also have a stack of John Eldredge books in my basket, earnestly recommended by a friend. I started Wild at Heart a while ago. Maybe I need to make a rule that I have to finish that before I get to read my Father Brown. At least it will fit neatly into a category in my reading challenge this year (ECPA bestseller). I also just added When Helping Hurts to my list, which I'm really looking forward to.

This month, I plan to finish a few books that are almost complete:
C.S. Lewis: His Life and Thought by Terry Glaspey
Augustine on the Christian Life by Gerald Bray
On Writing Well by William Zinsser (I love this one!)
Wild at Heart by John Eldredge (slogging through this one.)
The Iliad by Homer

I plan to begin:
The Karamazov Brothers by Dostoevsky
The Complete Father Brown by Chesterton (I may spread this out over half a year)
The Pilgrim's Regress (depending on when I finish the Lewis biography)

I plan to continue slowly, along with a group:
For the Children's Sake by Susan Schaeffer MacAulay
portions of Charlotte Mason's Original Home Schooling Series
Side by Side by Ed Welch

Reading all this at once is a little much for me...once I finish the loose ends from last year I will try to focus on no more than three books at once.

What are you planning to read in 2017?