bookish resolutions.

I see this post was accidentally published early; on the off-chance anyone saw that, I apologize most earnestly.

I grant, Reader, that New Year's Resolutions are very silly; I do not grant that this is reason enough not to do them. I have several.

1. Take fewer books out of the library. I do not mean by this "read fewer books" or "buy more books" or anything of the sort—what I mean is that I've a tendency to check far more books out of the library than I can realistically read. This is largely because I grew up without regular access to a public library, and so treat every visit as though it may well be my last. I often wind up returning books I've not read, which is just depressing. (It gets worse when I'm stressed—the less time I have to read the more books I borrow.) This year I mean to check out no more books than I can sensibly read and turn in on time. I can always go back.
2. Read Crime and Punishment. Because I can. In general I want to read more of that sort of long thing I'm always meaning to get to, even if it means I read fewer books in total. (I'm not scared of long books, truly, but I seem to have fallen into a pattern of not reading many.) Also Dad's always nagging me about Russian literature, so. I'm also meaning to read some Bulgakov.
3. Read more short stories. For no other reason than that I enjoy them, and in particular I should like to read more anthologies. I've historically had trouble with anthologies, because you wind up paying a great deal and often only enjoying a few stories, but I live near a library now, see point one. I think I've mentioned here that I believe a good short story a greater accomplishment than a good novel; I stick by that, which makes it even stranger that I read so few shorts in practice. To begin with I've been reading The Best Science Fiction & Fantasy of the Year Volume One, and it's got in it one of the best stories I think I've ever read, Ellen Klages' "In the House of the Seven Librarians."
4. Read more diversely. I've put this last because it's really the most important one. My reading lists are mostly women but still almost all white, and I'm ready to start doing something about that. I don't mean this in a grudging eat-your-vegetables kind of way—having a more diverse reading list is more fun. It only takes a bit more time and thought, which I'm usually too lazy for.