My reading plan

To offset today’s other post, here’s something that’s less of a hot potato. :) As I get ready to graduate, I want to keep learning, to broaden my perspective across the board, and to deepen it at the points that most interest me. Now, if I just read whatever I feel like reading, I do get a wide spectrum, but it’s often more sporadic than anything.

So, I’m going to try setting up a reading plan, with a solitary goal: to avoid falling into a rut where I only read one genre. I think it’ll work, as long as I don’t let it become a straitjacket that kills the joy of reading. It’s more of a bare minimum kind of a thing.

Here are the topics I’m considering so far; the list will fluctuate over time, but it’s a start:

Classics. Classic fiction, ala Dickens, Austen, Tolstoy, etc. Right now I’m reading A Tale of Two Cities (Dickens), Persuasion (Austen), and War and Peace (Tolstoy). I’ve been reading them for a while, but once I graduate I plan on doing a spurt where I finish them off.

Other fiction. I may eventually branch this out into subcategories (YA/children’s, grown up, sci-fi/fantasy, etc.), but this’ll be fine for now. I just started Orson Scott Card’s Enchantment, which looks promising.

History. Again, I may branch out later. Right now I’m reading Sun Tzu’s The Art of War.

Science. For now I’ll lump all of the sciences (including math) into one category. Right now I’m reading Claudia Dreifus’s Scientific Conversations. One of these days I want to sink my teeth into Gödel, Escher, Bach, but I think I’ll need to brush up on my math first.

Church. I checked out the first volume of Journal of Discourses, but haven’t started reading it yet. I’m also reading the second volume of Margaret Blair Young’s trilogy about black Mormons. (I’m counting Mormon fiction under this heading.)

Mission (Thailand). This’ll cover both Thai history, culture, and language. I haven’t been keeping up with it as well as I ought (read: virtually nothing), so this will hopefully keep me current. And I know very little about Thai history, so I’m excited to learn more about the country where I spent two years. (And Laos is included.)

Languages. It’s so easy to let languages fade away in neglect, so I’m going to make sure I’m always reading something in both Latin and Old English. (Those are the two I want to focus on keeping up for now. I’ll end up studying others as well, of course, but I don’t want to swamp myself.) I’m also reading up on biblical Hebrew and Greek, and soon I’ll have started Crime and Punishment in Russian. (I would have started it already, but I’ve been bogged down with schoolwork.)

Travel. I see this as the modern counterpart of history. One country per month ought to do it. I think I’ll start with…Wales. Mmm. :)

Library science. Since I’m planning to become one of the best librarians in the world ;), I need to know the field inside and out. While experience is certainly a very important part of that, reading up on it is almost as important. It’s a book profession, for crying out loud. I’ll start by reading some overviews, then narrow in on some of the topics that interest me (like cataloging and rare books).

Art/graphic design. I want to start learning more about woodcuts and book design, so I’ll probably start there. Typography, too. Mmm. :)

Miscellaneous. Just in case. :)

Any recommendations, for either topics or books?

Sounds like a good plan, but be careful. I suppose you’ll be fine as long as you skip around between categories. I’ve had problems in the past with trying to do things in a very linear way, i.e. “I can’t read anything else until I finish this book.” Which isn’t true. Books are for the reader (or writer), not the other way around. But skip around. Don’t strangle yourself. I suppose if anyone can do it, you can.

Oh, heavens, I could never let myself go the linear route. I’ve tried, but I don’t last longer than a day or two. :) Life is short. And because you can only read so many books in a given period of time, I intend to spend most of my reading time (if not all) reading things I find interesting. If I lose interest in a book, I have no problem in dropping it. I do it all the time. :)

As for my interests skipping around, that’s a given. :) This plan isn’t so much a cookie cutter as it is a reminder, so that in the back of my head I’ll be thinking, “Oh, I haven’t read much from my mission category lately, so I probably ought to pull out a book on Thailand…” But I don’t intend to let it rule my reading. It’s just a guideline. :)

Ben, my favorite books are People. They are interesting and you don’t have to worry about linear tracks. If I find one with a chapter that is unusually interesting, I always read the chapter in two languages…the obvious and HG. That way I get the real point of the reading and liken it to my own life that it will be for my profit and learning.

Recommended Reading: Gifts of the Spirit by Duane S. Crowther and Sons and Daughters of God by Joseph Fielding McConkie. Also Calculus 4th Edition by Howard Anton…well the last one wasn’t really my favorite but it’s in my library if you want to borrow it. =)

J: Nice. :) But of course books are people, or at least the thought processes, frozen in suspended animation of sorts. A book is a window to the soul. I’ll have to check out your recommendations (and while I hesitate to admit this, I rather do like reading calculus textbooks).