The nights might be drawing in but there are still more than 2 months left of 2020. As much as one might wish the year to be over and done with and for 2021 to bring on a new start, well, that is just not going to happen. The New Year is not going to magically wipe away the challenges that we are all facing in our present.
So, it may be too early to write off 2020 and look to the new year in absolute terms – and in any case, there are also lots of things to still look forward to in the next two months – but I have been prompted by a post in a Goodreads group to think about my reading plans for 2021.

Is it too early to think about reading plans for 2021?

Is it ever?!

I’m still trying to come with a definite idea for next year, but I am not sure if it will include a new reading project as such. I’m very much a mood reader, so planning is difficult.
I also don’t want to rush any of my ongoing projects – I am enjoying them far too much!
So, I will probably still be picking off titles as part of my “Will’s World” (Shakespeare) project, and I will still slowly close in on reading all of Highsmith’s titles (not many left), and I will still read the books about and by Sayers and Christie that are accumulating on my shelf.
For Sayers, this would include her collected letters as edited by her friend Barbara Reynolds in The Letters pf Dorothy L. Sayers, more recent The Mutual Admiration Society by Mo Moulton, and a collection of Sayer’s own work curated in God, Hitler and Lord Peter Wimsey: Selected Essays, Speeches and Articles.
For Christie, this will include a planned buddy read of Laura Thompson’s biography, Julius Green’s book about her stage plays (Curtain Up: Agatha Christie: A Life in the Theatre), and the plays themselves as collected in The Mousetrap and Other Plays.

And I also foresee more Virginia Woolf in 2021.
I recently acquired a nice (secondhand) hardback edition of Quentin Bell’s biography of Virginia, and have stocked up on paperback editions of Night and Day, Jacob’s Room, and The Waves. So, these are obvious targets. (Tho, I may end up reading Jacob’s Room this November as part of my annual WWI reads.)

I guess, I will do another Ancient August next year as this was something I really enjoyed this year and last year. So, you can expect more Greek / Roman classics or works based on them.
If anyone has any suggestions for this, please let me hear them!

From the books and authors I have discovered this year, I would also like to read more by J.B. Priestley, Anthony Gilbert (aka Lucy Malleson, who also wrote as Anne Meredith), Stella Gibbons, Rosamond Lehmann, Louise Welsh and Zadie Smith, but I think these would be more occasional reads, not fully developed reading projects.

Other than this, I am not sure whether I want a year of free-range reading or whether I am looking for more structure.
And I am also undecided as yet whether to set up another Mount TBR challenge for next year or take a year off and stick with the current setup of tackling Mt. TBR only every other year. Or maybe I should set up a challenge that focuses on my out-of-control virtual stack of ebooks that I haven’t read, yet… Hm, there is still much to think about.

What reads are you planning for next year? Are you planning yet?