December 2024 Reading Plans
INTRO
December has always been a month dedicated to resetting and recharging to be ready for my adventures the following year. This year I am approaching December with a twist: I want to push my creative juices and I want to be able to commit to reading, blogging and podcasting!
READING PLANS
I have two main areas of reading focus; on one hand I have epic fantasy (and what I selection I have for December), and on the other I have Slough House.
A test approach
This is an usual December for me: I have historically associated December with a slow month, a month to recover to be ready, at the beginning of the new year, to fire up on all cylinders. This year I want to shake things up: on one hand, I like the idea of starting strong in the new year; yet, the new year is an artificial barrier to my reading, there should be no difference between December and January; on the other, I want to test myself and see if pushing also through December has impact (whatever that is) or if I have artificially kept myself down.
I am also pretty excited about the end of the month; I usually have a few very slow days at work (and this year there is even a weekend) during which I will be able to focus on reading. And I am just pre-enjoying the feeling and the effort that will be required in this process!
Epic Fantasy - how I plan my reading month around the 6th of December
On the epic fantasy side of things, I have great names in fantasy to keep me company. Every. Single. One. Of. Them. The reason they are on the list? It has to do with my goal of completing as many series that I started in 2024 that I can.
In other words, for me, it is a March of the Mammoth month but in December; and you will see why I am making this comment once you “see” the size of my to-be-read list!
I have a book that will keep me company for the rest of the month - and maybe beyond - which is Anathem by Neal Stephenson. I started a few days ago, and it is incredibly dense for me. So I am taking my time, one step at a time and I hoping to get my way through it at the right pace for it!
The big date in December 2025 is the 6th of December which is release day for Wind and Truth by Brandon Sanderson and this book will conclude the very first arc in the Stormlight Archive; and it is pretty exciting to be experiencing these events first hand. So I need to plan around this specific date.
The other books that I have on the list - and that I am hoping to read at least one in six days (!!) are:
(i) The Return of the King by J. R.R. Tolkien, and with this I would finish The Lord of the Rings re-read for me! ;
(ii) Ship of Destiny by Robin Hobb. This book will help me conclude the second trilogy, The Liveship Traders series, in The Realm of the Elderling series.
It is achievable but it means I need to be single-minded and avoid doing the triple (or more) binge read that characterizes me. One book at a time so I can be free to only enjoy Wind and Truth.
When I will finish The Return of the King, Ship of Destiny and Wind and Truth, then I have a few different options. The first, which is also my preferred option, would be to continue with my Shadowmarch adventure by Tad Williams; I still have three books, starting with Shadowplay, in this series and I want to make sure that I make progress with it.
I would also like to start something new - and I am currently torn between a few different series. I could start some of the long series I have planned for 2025 (the 2025 reading plans post will be published momentarily); I could also start a shorter series trying to get a leg up for 2025, setting myself up for success! So if you follow me on Threads you will get live feedback on what I am reading!
Yet, what feels fantastic about this process is that I can slowly tick series off; in order words to complete them. The satisfaction that comes from this process is simply uncanny and I want to make sure I continue with it; and this might also be one of the reasons I should not finish Shadowmarch in December (to keep that momentum going in 2025) yet we can evaluate at a later stage!
Slough house by Mick Herron - they got me hook with the tv series; now I am hooked on the book series
It was easily one of my favorite tv series of all times and certainly one of the best shows in 2024 for me and I got the opportunity to watch every single episode.
So a few things happened: the first is that I binge watched every single series. To then realize that the books published (to this date, ideally) are 8, while the show has 4 series.
While I already blitzed through the first book in the series, called Slow Horses, I hope to enjoy the rest of the series during the month of December!
FANTASY EXPLORATIONS
I recently had a very interesting exchange on Threads - yes, I am on it and it might be my favorite social media outlet these days - with another user (@readingwithyeol - her account is awesome, give her a follow!) and the question was what makes a person interested in a new fantasy book. And I shared that my favorite thing is to explore, getting to know new fantasy places and worlds. This exchange made me realize that the name of Fantasy Explorations derives exactly from this process, the willingness to explore new fantasy worlds, new places with their issues and their challenges. And these stories, if done in an interesting way, will often present quite a lot of social issues that require solving, giving the world depth and an explanation as to why things are complex in the world that I am experincing!
This month there is an ambitious version of the podcast, namely, that I want to share my Wind and Truth journey in an episode by mid December (yes, I am being quite ambitious timeline!). This will be an interesting process for me, being the ability to stop and reflect on what I read instead of binge reading the book - which is a genuine risk in this case!
And this ties is quite nicely in the next section of this post!
I will also focus on a themed episode - and I will keep the mystery around what theme/topic or trope I will be covering. Are you interested in this form of exploration?
OTHER GOALS
Being intentional has been on my radar for a couple of years, and with a clear definition of what that means for me for about a year. Reading is not about being able to just digest as many books as I can; I want to make sure that they matter to me.
In a slightly different quest of documenting events I experience (such as my triathlon journey but also my daily life) and I am embracing 2025 as my analog year. In this process, it occurred to me that this would be the perfect time to introduce the reading journal process in my daily life. In fact, I remember vividly the events of the books I actually journaled about in the past. And in an effort to be ready in 2025 - and not having to start from scratch with all the relevant habits - I will incorporate this process in December!
OUTRO
What are your plans for December? Do you slow down for the holidays or do you keep pushing or introduce new habits and content getting ready for the next year?
What are the exciting reads for December?
Are you getting ready for 2025, setting yourself up for success?
Let me know in the comments down below!
