12-Week Update on My 2024 Reading Goals
Is it sad that I already want to bail on half of it?
It's not Shakespeare's fault.
I just really didn't want to read any more of him after finishing Henry V.
So I didn’t.
Instead, I read The Skin of Our Teeth and A Man for All Seasons.
Falling behind on Shakespeare might mean I don’t finish his complete works this year, and I might adjust my goal to just reading his histories. Comedy and tragedy can wait.
Lest you worry that my lack of reading indicates some trials in my life, it’s quite the reverse. I’ve had more time to write lately!
Am I the Drama?
The Complete Works of Shakespeare:
Sonnets 1-12,King John, Richard II, Henry IV, Part 1, Henry IV, Part 2Henry V
The Complete Plays of Chekhov
The Skin of Our Teeth by Thornton Wilder: Enjoyable, and deliberately less accessible than a play like Our Town, this play is about how mankind repeatedly drags itself back from the brink of destruction. Mr. and Mrs. Antrobus have been married for 5,000 years, their son is Cain, their maid is a Sabine woman, but it’s also 1942 and they’re both in their mid-forties. Yes, it’s confusing. Funny and sometimes moving, but confusing.
Cat on a Hot Tin Roof by Tennessee Williams
A Man for All Seasons by Robert Bolt: Probably my favorite thing I’ve read this year. I was always fond of the movie, but I haven’t seen it in over a decade. I plan to watch it soon. What moved me most in reading the script was the friendship between Thomas More and the Duke of Norfolk.
Becket by Jean Anouilh
Oedipus Cycle by Sophocles
Medea by Euripides
Next Steps
Becket by Jean Anouilh
Cat on a Hot Tin Roof by Tennessee Williams
Henry VI, Part 1
Other Things I Finished
Just Stab Me Now by Jill Bearup - I read it twice
The Lazy Genius Way by Kendra Adachi
Haha, can that really be it?
Currently Reading
Crosswicks: A Circle of Quiet by Madeleine L’Engle
War and Peace by Leo Tolstoy
Johnny Tremain by Esther Forbes
The Americans by Harold Coy
A Favorite Quote
From A Man for All Seasons:
Norfolk: Oh, confound all this… I’m not a scholar, as Master Cromwell never tires of pointing out, and frankly I don’t know whether the marriage was lawful or not. But damn it, Thomas, look at those names… You know those men! Can’t you do what I did, and come with us, for fellowship?
More (Moved): And when we stand before God, and you are sent to Paradise for doing according to your conscience, and I am damned for not doing according to mine, will you come with me, for fellowship?
Such an inspiring list! I'm in the middle of 8 books right now, and one of them is 'Ulysses'...