January!

Well, Januray is whizzing by at a breakneck speed and I am not reading a much as I had hoped (or as high brow as I had hoped!), but I think this is partly due to feeling rather low lately. I have felt homesick and lonely, and also getting motivated has been difficult, but I am determined to change this!

I have decided that I am going to get back to being more crafty. Not crafty in a dodgy, skullduggery type way, in a making things and being creative kind of way.

I realised that Christmas is becoming way too comercialised (yes, I am slow on the uptake ;)), and am going to try and make and win Christmas this year. I have entered around 200 competitions so far this year, and have a list of things I hope to make! This includes quite a lot of knitting, making Christmas decorations, baking/jamming more, trying my hand at some basic sewing etc. So, wish me luck!

Back to the books, I suppose I am not doing so badly- I think I am on 7 for this month so far, and that hasn't been a struggle. One of those is a 1001 book (The Wasp Factory by Iain Banks, which I am currently reading for my book group) and another is from my list of books to read this year (Breaking Dawn by Stefenie Meyer).

This IS going to be a good year, I just know it! Pick myself up, brush myself down, and swallow a spoonful of motivation and I can make it better.

New Year Reading resolutions

Well, I managed to hit my target of 100 books with 15 being 1001 books last year- I read Bonjour, Tristesse by Francoise Sagan and loved it.

My target for this year is 60 books with 15 being 1001 books. This is because I plan to tackle some challenging/long books from the 1001 list!

Books I really want to read this year-

Pride and Prejudice- Jane Austen
On Beauty- Zadie Smith
Middlesex- Jeffrey Eugenides
The God of Small Things- Arunditi Roy
Atonement-Ian McEwan
Memoirs of a Geisha-Arthur Golden
A SuitableBoy- Vikram Seth
The Wasp Factory- Iain Banks
Rebecca-Daphne Du Maurier
One Hundred Years of Solitude- Gabriel Garcia Marquez
To Kill a Mockingbird- Harper Lee
Vanity Fiar- William Makepeace Thackeray
Little Women- Louisa m Alcott
david Copperfield- Dickens
The Woman in White- Wilkie Collins

I also have a few borrowed books that I want to get read-some that I borrowed a very, very long time ago!

I also want to read-

All 7 Harry Potter books (read the first 4 when pregnant but will have to reread)
Breaking Dawn, the 4th book in the Twilight Saga
The Big Stone Gap books by Adriana Trigiani

I am really looking forward to pushing myself with reading this year, and hope there will be some fabulous books in there.