2024 Reading Plans

It is that time of year again when we start to look forward to next year's reading plans. I am going to assume that everyone is happy with our current format and just ask for hosting volunteers. At this point, you don't have to have a theme in mind, just choose a month that you would be willing to host and you can let us know more details later. Of course, if you have an idea, we would love to hear about it.

Hosting a month means that you will come up with a theme and set up a thread. It's simple to do and if anyone has any problems or questions, please don't hesitate to ask.

January: Cindydavid4: Janus - https://www.librarything.com/topic/355945#
February: Family Historian - Aquarius & Amethyst - https://www.librarything.com/topic/357404#
March: Tess_W: Medicine & Epidemics - https://www.librarything.com/topic/358429#
April: Cindydavd4: characters with disabilities - https://www.librarything.com/topic/359346
May: Miss Watson: International Labour Day - https://www.librarything.com/topic/359827#
June: Countrylife: Wonders of the World - https://www.librarything.com/topic/359831#
July: CurrierBell: Vive la France - https://www.librarything.com/topic/361022
August: LibraryCin
September: DeltaQueen: Royal to the Bone
October: kjuliff: Adultery
November: Tanya dogearedcopy: Biographies & Memoirs
December: DeltaQueen: Reader's Choice

Please note that I have slotted both CurrierBell and Cindydavid4 in for months that they have mentioned - please let me know if this is correct and you do want to host these months.

Everyone else - the rest of the year is wide open - just let me know.

>1 DeltaQueen50: Absolutely for July, in honor of Bastille Day. To be precise, the title is Vive la France! (italics not needed). France is feminine and articles are not capitalized. (Oh, picky picky me.) And although I didn't include an exclamation point when I mentioned this on the other thread, I think most French would prefer one.

Thanks for everything!

>2 CurrerBell: Fixed and I am looking forward to it!

>2 CurrerBell: I am also looking forward to this!

>3 DeltaQueen50: I could take May with a tentative idea for International Labour Day.

I'll take March with a tentative topic of World Spider Day, please and thank you!

I'll take February which means I'll need to come up with a theme soon. Currently pondering.

Thanks everyone, I've added you to the list.

I am going to snag April for myself with a topic having something to do with Royalty.

>7 DeltaQueen50: Judy, may I change my theme to Medicine & Epidemics, please and thank you!

>8 Tess_W: Absolutely. :)

>1 DeltaQueen50: March Epidemics: haven't we already done this topic within the last year or two?

>10 cfk: The most recent health topic I can see is that in August 2020 we did "Epidemics, Famine & Other Health Disorders". The March 2024 topic could be set up ensuring slightly different wording and it has been almost 4 years so I would say we are ready for this topic again.

Shoot! I had a topic in mind a month or two ago, and didn't write it down!

How about put me in for August. Hopefully that will give me plenty of time to remember or come up with something else.

>12 LibraryCin: Thanks, Cindy.

I'll take June. Topic later.

>14 countrylife: Thanks, I've added you to the top list. :)

Four months left! I could always host December as a "Reader's Choice" month, but I will wait for now and see if anyone else wants to claim it.

shoot I didn't star this! Ill do Janus, and would like to also do a theme of book s with characters differently abled, in sept .(call it differently abled characters, unles someone has a better idea) I am interested in doing this earlier in the year so if anyone wants to switch with me lemme know......

Since I'm doing February, my theme will be Aquarius and Amethyst, the sign and birthstone of that month - think water and purple stones and space travel? They are known to be forward thinking!

>17 cindydavid4: Cindy, if you want April, I can move to September. Just let me know.

>18 Familyhistorian: Thanks Meg, I have added your theme to the list.

sure that would be great! thx

Has adultery been a theme yet? If not I’m happy to do it any month.

>21 kjuliff: As far as I remember, we haven't done "Adultery" before. Sounds interesting, thanks for volunteering, I will put you in for October. Let me know if you would rather a different month.

We now have November and December open, although I will probably do a "Readers Choice" month for December unless someone particularly wants December.

>22 DeltaQueen50: October is fine.

I'll take November-- Biographies & Memoirs

ETA: This can be non-fiction or non-fiction.
Non-Fiction is fairly straightforward-- so no need to explain that; but jic you need to know what a fictional bio-memoir would look like, it's a fictionalized account or recreation. A couple examples off of the top of my head are The Autobiography of Henry VIII: With Notes by His Fool, Will Somers: A Novel (by Margaret George) and Mademoiselle Chanel: A Novel (by C.W. Gortner).

just noticed this, please change disable characters to characters with disabilitiesIt is the way its used now. Yes I know i said you could change it but I cringe when I see it! :)

>23 kjuliff: really looking forward to seeing what books come up for this!

>26 cindydavid4: I’m going to enjoy making the list!

>23 kjuliff: Adultery. One book that pops up from an LT tag search is Le Carre's The Naive and Sentimental Lover, his one non-espionage novel (although A Murder of Quality is more an Agatha Christie-style mystery, but it includes George Smiley).

I'm doing a Smiley read for the Fourth Quarter time period, and I may just get hold of The Naive and Sentimental Lover as well since chronologically it comes right after Le Carre's fifth novel, the non-Smiley A Small Town in Germany, which I'm also reading for the sake of completeness in an omnibus edition of Le Carre's first five novels.

>24 Tanya-dogearedcopy: Thanks, I have added you to the list. There is a type of fiction that seems quite popular these days, I've seen it called "fact-ion". It's about famous people, most particularly movie stars from the past. Some examples of this are: Miss del Rio by Barbara Mujica, Strangers in the Night (Frank Sinatra and Ava Gardner) by Heather Webb, and The Brightest Star ( Anna May Wong) by Gail Tsukiyama.

>25 cindydavid4: I've corrected the entry.

I've added myself in for a December's Reader Choice but if anyone wants to do something different just let me know.

Our year is filled in and I am looking forward to some interesting books!

>29 DeltaQueen50: A great work of "fact-ion" and not really all that recent....
Norman Mailer's The Executioner's Song, one of his greatest novels, perhaps his greatest(?) surpassing even the greatest American war novel (OK, that's just my opinion), The Naked and the Dead. OK, I know, Mailer's love-him-or-hate-him, but he's likely my favorite post-WW2 American novelist.

And for biographical novels, Mailer's foe (frenemy?)....
Gore Vidal, with his Narratives of Empire heptalogy. Well, biographical novels as to Burr and Lincoln, the other five being "historical novels" more broadly. Burr in particular, with the title character's catty voice so resembling Vidal himself, could qualify as "fact-ion," though Lincoln is more a straight "biographical novel" as seen from the POV of, among others, Lincoln's younger of two private secretaries, John Hay, who will reappear in Empire as U.S. Secretary of State.

>29 DeltaQueen50: :)

>31 CurrerBell: When I stop to think about it, there are a lot of fictional biographical novels so we will have lots of choices. :)

In looking through the proposed reading list topics for 2024 it seems to me to be heavily Euro-centric. What about adding in a topic that has a setting in the islands of the Caribbean? There has been lots of good fiction written about that area of the world.

>34 benitastrnad: I would say that most of these, except perhaps for Vive la France, could be adapted for use across the world?

And possibly even that one could be used for a novel set in a Francophone country elsewhere?

>34 benitastrnad: not necessarily. when I post my themes I try to include reads globally. for example this months theme has several books about indebgenous people

I wonder if its because RTT is about books in different times, wheras Reading Globally is about books around the world But like anything else there is much inbetween that works too

>35 john257hopper: If you're looking for French-oriented classics pertaining to the Caribbean, there's Harriet Martineau's The Hour and the Man (a biographical novel of Toussaint Louverture) and C.L.R. James's The Black Jacobins.

ETA: I chose Vive la France! because I'm planning a major reading project of 19th Century French novels (just having gotten started on Balzac). I have absolutely no objection if someone wants to expand beyond metropolitan France to take in Francophone colonial areas. We're quite latitudinarian in this group as to allowing members to interpret the monthly theme.

My interpretations for January and February:

• Janus ... "In my beginning is my end. Of your kindness, pray for the soul of Thomas Stearns Eliot, poet. In my end is my beginning." A half-century old reread of Russell Kirk's Eliot and His Age along with a reread of The Waste Land but in the Norton Critical with its supplementary materials.
• Aquarius & Amethyst ... Since space travel is included (>18 Familyhistorian:), I think I'm going to do a half-century old reread of C.S. Lewis's Space Trilogy.

>37 CurrerBell: I really enjoyed reading Eliot's poetry in high school, but I haven't tried Lewis' Space Trilogy so thanks for that one!

>37 CurrerBell: love that from Elliot, Ive come to enjoy his work when I happen upon them, I dont tend to read poetry, but thats certainly apt right now

Is October's subject Adultry or Adultery?

>40 Familyhistorian: Adultery

>41 kjuliff: Thanks!

>41 kjuliff: & >42 Familyhistorian: Fixed!

I will be participating this year as much as possible. However, I am 1,200 miles away from my books and will have to rely on Inter-Library Loan for most of the books I will read for this challenge. I am unclear about what the topic Janus means. Is it about the Roman God Janus? What that god stands for, beginnings, changes, transitions, time, gates, doorways? If so, what are some books that would fit into that category. Would the Jean Auel books work as beginnings? What about books about people leading double lives?

It can be all of those things see the posts above, one indeed is about Janus but the others are about beginnings, changes, transitions, time, gates, doorways. So really the world of books is wide open for you! does that help?

>1 DeltaQueen50: sorry I just saw this yes, the month I am in is just fine thx!

I have a question for everyone. Do you use the Wikis and if so, are they useful? Personally, although Tess and I do the upkeep on them, I don't really use them and I notice that many of us don't bother adding our books to the Wiki. I would gladly discontinue them, but please let me know your feelings on this issue.

I almost never use them - and whenever I happen to read for a topic, I rarely if ever remember that we are using them in this group... :(

>47 DeltaQueen50: I always post to the Wikis but I have no problem at all if you want to discontinue them. I really only post because I figure you guys are doing the work to maintain them so I ought to use them for that reason.

There are other groups where I post my "bragging lists": Big Fat Books, ROOTs, and 75 Books Challenge. They're almost like personal Wikis. If you and Tess want to discontinue the Wikis here on the RTT group, I might post a similar "bragging list" on a separate thread here on RTT, listing my monthly and quarterly RTT reads. In fact, it's something that we all of us regulars on here might want to do. That takes the burden off of you guys to maintain two Wikis that aren't being used as thoroughly as they ought to be.

In fact, I personally think it would be easier not just for you and Tess but in fact for all of us if we'd use each our own individual "bragging list" thread. I think the Wikis are cumbersome to use because they don't have as sophisticated a mark-up system as threads. It's not your fault; it's just the way that LT has the Wiki system set up.

I'd as soon see the Wikis discontinued and replaced (for those of us who want to do so) with our own "bragging list" threads here on the RTT group. Anyway, I'm cool with whatever is good for you and Tess.

~Mike

ETA: I do hope, though, that anyone who uses a "bragging list" thread will still post their reading to the month/quarter thread that the month/quarter host has set up. That would be a nice courtesy to the host and it would also centralize the monthly theme or quarterly time period's reading by all group members.

I always add my book(s) to the wikis and I use them to look at the previous years to get more ideas for what to read for the quarterly themes. But I could also scroll down and find the old threads, so we don't have to keep the wiki just for that.

Regarding individual threads, I rather like that there are none here and like this the group is rather focused on the topics and not cluttered, and I probably wouldn't want to start one since I have found that maintaining several personal threads becomes too stressful to me and takes up too much time.

I find the wiki html rules confusing, which is why I never post. I wish it was more like posting on threads.

That said, I really do not want to have to start another personal thread here. I think the main threads each month are an excellent place for us to share our themed reads all in one place. It makes it easy to discuss different aspects of the topic chosen and share, compare and contrast our selected books.

>49 CurrerBell: how would a bragging list be different from our own threads? Dont feel like doing a lot of repetiion

the wikis are valuable for folk who are leading a theme and want ideas on books. I try to remember to do it but it really is cumbersom. But its useful

I always add my books, and I have used them occasionally, but not often. Usually when we are repeating or have a similar theme to a previous one.

>50 MissBrangwen: Regarding individual threads, I rather like that there are none here and like this the group is rather focused on the topics and not cluttered, and I probably wouldn't want to start one since I have found that maintaining several personal threads becomes too stressful to me and takes up too much time.

I agree with this. I have one group here on LT and one on GR where I list all my books read, and that's enough for me, so I wouldn't add an additional personal thread.

I also agree that if some people had individual threads, they should also post to the monthly challenge thread. It gets to be too many threads to follow if we want to see what others are reading or have any discussion about it.

I want to stress that I'm happy to do what everyone else wants. The "bragging list" was just a suggestion to avoid Wiki maintenance, if that's getting to be too onerous. I use 75 Books Challenge as my primary central repository anyway, so it's not like I need to set up a separate thread here on RTT.

As to >52 cindydavid4:'s question to me, a "bragging list" would be exactly that – our own individual threads. From what I'm reading, my suggestion of such a "bragging list" isn't very popular, and that's fine with me. I'm perfectly happy to stick with the Wikis, and there are definite advantages to them. I just don't want to put a burden on whoever has to maintain the Wikis.

I'm perfectly happy to stick with the Wikis. No question they're the ideal format if everyone would use them, and I do use them despite their clumsiness in mark-up (which, as I've already noted, is a feature of their basic design and has nothing to do with the two folks who so graciously maintain them).

The big advantage to the Wikis – again, if everyone would use them – is a neat, clean centralization. Posting to the monthly and quarterly hosting threads, while it should definitely be done, doesn't leave a conveniently accessible listing of everything that's been read for the month/quarter since there's a great deal of back-and-forth commentary (and I wouldn't want to suppress that commentary) which distracts from the clean Wiki listing for the month or the quarter.

My own preference is to keep the Wikis, but it would really help if everyone would use them.

Thanks for all the input. I also don't want to keep an individual thread here as I have a detailed one at the Category Challenge and that's enough for me. As someone said, having the one monthly challenge thread and one quarterly challenge thread helps to promote discussion so I think for now, I won't make any changes to our set-up. The Wiki is optional but is handy for looking back on previous challenges and what was read. I'm pretty sure that Tess finds the Wiki useful for the quarterly challenges as well.

>56 DeltaQueen50: We crossposted, so I deleted my post because it didn't make sense anymore! :-)

The Wiki is an OK tool for me. I don't use it much but then with all that has happened in my life in the last 4 months I haven't been doing much posting. I think the Wiki is good for the person running this group, and it is OK to keep using it.

I think that this group is like most of the others. People sign up for it in January and then enthusiasm wanes. In the end it is the diehards that use it and the tools associated with it the most. It should be them who decides what to add and what to eliminate.

I can not start another thread anywhere--too burdensome. I like the wiki, because when I go to post a quarter, I can say: these books were read by previous members in a previous quarter. But.......then.......I really don't need it. I can look up the previous threads--they go back to about 2016. There are older ones, but when you select them just takes you to LT's home page.

To add my penny's worth, I don't use the Wikis at all, I must say. No disrespect to those who have invested time and energy into them, of course, but they're just not part of my "workflow" here.

I try to remember the Wiki, but I notice that I do not always have a book for the monthly themes, so my participation is very erratic. I can live without it.

I might suggest to keep it for the quarterly reads because let's face it, prehistoric and Arthurian Britain are not easy period in which to find good books. I would say we wouldn't need it for the monthly.....however.....

I think I will continue on with the monthly wiki until the end of the year and then take a second look at it.

>64 DeltaQueen50: I will do the same with the quarterly! I think that is a good idea, especially for the monthly, even if a lot don't use it. It will tell us if a topic was used before and when. Helpful for newbies so a monthly topic is not repeated in the same year or two?

>65 Tess_W: See - I think that this is a different conversation altogether.

I think that having the wiki with all the topics (and a link to their threads) is a useful thing (kinda what we have over in the Author of the Month wiki). That takes a lot less maintenance, does not ask everyone to figure out how to add their books and if someone wants to see what had been read for that topic, they can go into the thread(s). What I almost never use (and remember to update) is the adding of people's books into the wiki in addition to adding them to the thread.

Well, late to the party but FWIW, I actually use the Wikis quite a bit. It's a way for me to find inspiration for those time periods that I'm not really familiar with and new titles for periods where I feel like I'm "read out". I'm disinclined to go back through past threads. But that said, I totally get that it's a tedious & thankless job to maintain the Wikis. I'll go with the group consensus.

At the end of the quarterly thread, I usually post a quick, bullet point list of what I've read with maybe a comment about the list overall; but I don't do it for the Monthly threads because if I read something, it's usually only one book and has been covered in comments.

>64 DeltaQueen50: : I am ok with whatever you decide. This is a tough one, as different people use this group differently.

For myself, I find the wikis very useful, both for finding books and for keeping track myself. I always read the wikis, but very seldom read the threads after the OP. Early on, I used to scour every month's threads to find the books which hadn't been added to the wikis and add them myself, just to make sure the wikis were complete. But since my husband retired, I haven't had time to keep that up. I do regret that, as I use the wikis a lot to search for books, and to make sure I'm not repeating a challenge for the monthlies.

I'm glad there is agreement on individual user's threads. When I first joined this group thirteen years ago, I did start one for myself, but found the wiki better for keeping track, and haven't updated my own thread in five or six years.

>68 countrylife: Wow, that is so great that you kept the wikis up to date yourself! Wish I had extra time to help out that way, too.