For 2024, I set a goal of listening to all the works of Bach. I am truly loving this project. Yesterday I listened to BWV 1006, which is a violin partita. Itzhak Perlman did a pretty famous recording of it for the BBC (I think in 1978!), so you can find that. Then there’s a more recent version from Shunsuke Sato with the Netherlands Bach Society. Also amazing. Doing this project meant I listened to this piece (twice!), which I’m not sure I would have without the plan to be so thorough.
Of course, as we hit the last 100 days of the year, this means I’m nearing completion of this year-long project. Which leads to the question…what should I do next?
In 2021, I read War and Peace at the rate of one chapter a day. In 2022 I read all the works of Shakespeare (at a pace of about 3-4 pages with small type per day). In 2023 I read all the works of Jane Austen (at a pace of about 10 pages per day – I finished in September since it turned out I miscalculated on this one). And this past year I’ve been listening to approximately 30 minutes of Bach daily.
Whatever I choose for 2025 needs to fit a few criteria:
*It needs to be worth doing (as I believe all the previous projects have been!). I want to read or listen to work that is generally seen as classic and important.
*I need to be excited about it (I’m just not that into Mozart…sorry!).
*It also needs to be doable. Some people’s lifetime works might actually take more than a year to consume at a sustainable pace. I can probably read for about 20 minutes a day. Listening is a little easier to do more since I can have it running in the background (like in the car). Obviously there is some ambiguity here as I could have listened to performances of Shakespeare’s plays but…anyway.
So, I welcome suggestions! You can post or can always email me (laura at lauravanderkam dot com). My timeline for a decision is the Best Laid Plans Live retreat in early November, as I try to have a rough draft of next year’s goals by then…
In other news: We celebrated my 2nd kid’s birthday this week! He turned 15. After he finished a 5k in a cross country meet, we had his favorite foods for dinner, which included lobster tails, a caprese salad, and mac and cheese. He asked what time exactly he was born, and it turns out it was 10:07 p.m. (per the birth certificate). That reminded me that the same doctor delivered him and his older brother. After kid #2 was born, she congratulated me and told me “I’m so happy I could help you complete your family.” Haha. Of course, this was in NYC where the maternity ward was so crowded (we were 9 months after Christmas…) that the baby and I wound up staying in a room in the urology ward where they posted a guard in front of the door (as there was no other security, as there is in the mother/baby unit). It was like we were famous. Memories! It’s been fun watching him become a runner. He’s definitely faster than his mom.
I was thinking about Beethoven for next year but I have not looked into how feasible this would be. We have several of his works on LP conducted by Toscanini that I inherited from my grandfather and so I thought it might be fun.
@Gillian – yeah, I don’t have a good sense of the volume of Beethoven’s work. I was more familiar with Bach and how much that would be. I might listen to all his symphonies as a mini-project if I wind up reading something as my year-long project.
These challenges are always so personal, but I have always wanted to read all of Willa Cather’s novels – she wrote 12, which would fit well with a yearlong challenge, but that is a lot of Cather! I’ve also always wanted to read the unabridged Les Miserables if you’re looking for a single work. (Speaking of translations from French, I have read The Count of Monte Cristo, which is long and a lot of fun.)
A few years ago, I tried to attend 12 plays or musicals and while I did not technically succeed (I saw 9), I saw more than I would have otherwise!
@RG – Cather is great! I’ve read a lot (maybe even most?) of her novels so I’m mixed about that as a challenge. I’d definitely enjoy it but maybe I should pick something more new to me (though I had read W&P before so…). Food for thought…
Love the play idea. A challenge like this definitely nudges one to do more than otherwise.
I’ve been doing daily Spanish lessons on my DuoLingo app (am on day 301 currently — not planning on stopping until I get to 365!). It’s extremely manageable and has been a great way to refresh my memory from the high school Spanish classes I took decades ago.
@Jessica- sounds like an excellent streak! Here’s to hitting 365 🙂
It’s not classical, but I am thinking of listening to the entire catalog of U2’s works/songs. As of 2023 there were 436 song releases. Presuming there were some new releases in 2024, we may be somewhere around 450-460? That’s less than 12 songs in a given month on average. The reason I’d choose U2 is not because they are my favorite band, though I do like their music. I just find their music and message intriguing and inspirational. I haven’t yet given any thought to how I’d organize this, but I’m pretty sure it wouldn’t be chronologically. I need to do a bit more research before I decide.
RG’s reply reminded of the year my son tried out for Les Mis at his high school. I started reading it (in English) the night of mid-January auditions. He played Enjolras (red vest in the musical, and Marius’ good friend). I finished the book by the last show in early May. I am not ashamed to admit I skipped paragraphs- and pages-long descriptions of tree pruning, sewer design, history of clergy in Switzerland, manufacturing, Napoleonic battles. But still, as with Gone With the Wind, the novel is quite a bit more than the production.
I rather like the idea of studying a new language. Perhaps ASL?
@Barb – they really were into ‘set pieces’ in that era. Moby Dick is full of those too. I guess this is what happens when people don’t have cable. You’ve got to fill the time somehow!
Awesome. I love how planned you are (duh!) and are giving enough time to think through things.
I am thinking of doing one difficult ( for me) book for the next 3 months- Ill be reading easier books other times but 20 minutes in the morning everyday for this one book!
Have you done the whole Bible? That is a popular project for Christians anyways. I have attempted several times and abandoned it..
I made it to Joshua … that’s not far.
@Gillian – well, it beats the folks who get stopped up in Leviticus.
I’ve just started reading Terry Pratchett’s Discworld books. They may not be ‘classic’ in the sense of Shakespeare, Austen et al, but they are certainly the classics of their genre! It’s not a genre I read a lot of myself, but the books are funny, and often poke fun at the things in our own lives we take for granted. I can’t find a quick reference online for the full page count of the series, but a rough estimate would be around 40 pages a day? So maybe a little too much, but it is really good!
Have you considered The Complete Sherlock Holmes? I’m thinking of making that my 2025 project. And as a couple of others have suggested, if you haven’t read the entire Bible, that could be an idea as well. I tried several times and abandoned it, doing it as a yearlong project was how I finally finished it.
@Beth – ooh, sherlock holmes is an interesting idea…I had considered Agatha Christie as well, though she is so prolific I’m not sure I could get through all of it in a year!
Lord of the Rings triology, Les Mis…these are the ones on my list
What about Debussy? If I were to read a really long book I’d probably choose Infinite Jest but I suspect our tastes are fairly divergent. Long books have to be really amazing for me to stick with them bc my tbr is so long I feel like I’m wasting my time on a book I’m only meh on. For instance I had to abandon Lonesome Dove recently because I was 100 pages in and still bored. Maybe you could do an Ann Patchett book challenge? Or read all of Gwendolyn Brooks?
Or Cormac McCarthy! Or Philip Roth! (Again these might be a bit more up my alley than yours but hey!)