Classics and other reading goals

Nymeth over at things mean alot had a wonderful post on her reading goals back on Dec 29, which I somehow missed.  I caught up on it today, and it has inspired me to think about some of my reading goals for this year.  Care also has a post up today on her blog, Care's Online book Club, about new to her authors that she wants to read this year. This is also something I want to do.  I have, at last count, 32 first books in series that I haven't read yet, on my shelves.  That's an awesome figure of books I've been collecting over the years!  Obviously I am a sucker for series. And while they aren't all new to me authors, many of them are. 

One of my main reading goals is to continue to read whatever I want, when I want to.  I discovered that I had been hoarding new books coming into the house, for a rainy day I guess, and I decided last year to read the new books I was really anticipating.  It worked wonders for me, and even better, I haven't run out!  There are even more new books I want to read!

Another reading goal: read more classics. Period.  I was really ashamed to see I had read only one classic last year! And that was at Christmas - A Christmas Carol by Charles Dickens (which I loved, by the way.  One of many reviews to come).
1. Ulysses - James Joyce (I bogged down last year after I hurt my knee.  I can blame the pain for only so much, though!)
2. The Diary of Samuel Pepys (I was really enjoying this two years ago, and then I got sidetracked)
3. Bleak House - Charles Dickens - I love, love, love the BBC series and got it for Christmas last year. So let's just read the book now, Susan!!
4. North and South - Elizabeth Gaskell (I love love love the BBC series of this one too.  I watch it every year. So I have got to read the book and compare.  Surely the book is better, it usually is, so more of Margaret and John can only be good, right?)
5. Cold Comfort Farm - Stella Gibbons - (my mother loves this book, everyone in the blogging world loves it, what am I waiting for?)
6. Foundation - Isaac Asimov
7. Hrolf Krakis Saga - Poul Anderson
8. The Famished Road - Ben Okri
9. Oh Pioneers - Willa Cather
10. The Gathering - Anne Enright
11. The Mabinogion
12. To Kill a Mockingbird - Harper Lee
13. The Mill on the Floss - George Eliot
14.Where Late the Birds Sang - Kate Wilhelm
15 Barchester Towers - Anthony Trollope
16. Montaigne's Essays
17. Sir Thomas Wyatt - poems (am looking for an edition of his work currently)
18. Voltaire - Letters on England
19 Shakespeare - anything

I'd better stop there. Considering I've never read more than 5 classics in any one year willingly, if I complete half of what I've listed, it will be fabulous.  I have a hankering for Thomas Hardy, who I haven't read since my university days. So the above is a tentative list of classics I'd like to read this year.

It's late so I will save the "new to me authors first in a series" list I was planning.  The 32 books I'd pulled out two weeks ago were awesome!!!  and kind of frightening.  Seconds in a series I was expecting, but I didn't have many.  Apparently when I get through book one, if I really like it, I continue to read the series through after.  So I think it's time I looked at those first books in a series! List to come later this weekend.