New Years Reading Resolutions

by Laura Sullivan

I like making New Year's resolutions. I make lots, because one is bound to get done, and I feel so accomplished. (I think it's because I like making lists and crossing things off. First: make list. Then when the list is done, cross off "Make list." Who's ahead of the game!) 

This year I am making a reading resolution, and it's now public, so you can ask me how it's going when you see me on the street. But if I am on the street, it is likely that my car is broken down. So stop and help. Then ask me how my resolution is going. 

I am going to read Middlemarch, by George Eliot.(This portrait is of George at 30. I hope that she's not just been reading her book- she appears to be suffering from terrible ennui.)  I know, some of you think, "Oh, I've read that four times" or "Every Summer!" But for me, it is my literary Waterloo. I have tried three times to get into this book that by all rights I should love, but something stops me at about page 150. No more- I will finish it!

I have been successful in a reading New Year's resolution book before- I resolved to read the New Testament in its entirety a few years ago, and I did. And I knew how that story would end… go figure. Future years' resolutions will include James Joyce's Ulysses, The Old Testament, and You Can't Go Home Again, by Tom Wolfe. 

I have read and enjoyed many a giant tome. War and Peace, Les Miserables- easy. All Jane Austen- child's play. I drool over Downton Abbey. I should be wrapped up in a Victorian Novel with a cup of tea right now. I vow to get to the bottom of this book once and for all, and cross it off my list.

I'd love to hear- what's your reading resolution?