Our staff share their literary resolutions for the new year.

“Okay look. This is it. 2021 is going to be the year I crack poetry. For so long, I’ve shied away from written poetry, feeling myself too dense, too literal, for all those volatile emotions overflowing from the innocuously slim spines on the poetry shelves. I’m not a sensitive Aeolian harp! I played a sensible four years of piano and now listen to K-pop! But this year, with my concentration shot and my reading rut a permanent installation of my once vibrant cultural landscape, I turned to poetry and found myself loving it. From Ellen van Neerven’s blindingly good Throat, to Cham Zhi Yi’s tender and defiant blur by the, to Thuy On’s vibrantly visual Turbulence, to Charmaine Papertalk Green’s monumental Nganajungu Yagu, I was moved and awed by the linguistic talent and the breadth of experience I encountered. These poets jump started my heart despite the numbing turmoil of this year and I hope to carry that gift with me into the new one.”

– Jackie Tang

“There was a few moments within this year, 2020 when I lost it. I could not concentrate, but I could doom scroll, as my bloke calls it when I read him (very interesting) facts and figures from my phone. Reading crime books helped. It restored my ability to curl up on the couch and enter into another world.

For my reading pleasure of 2021 I’m going to balance my need for quick entertainment with Australian classics. I want to read all the novels of Thea Astley, Beverley Farmer and Elizabeth Jolley again. I want to submerge myself in the colours and flavours of Australian women and landscape. I want to feel the sweatiness of Queensland, the dryness of the red and scrubby land and the wildness of the Victorian coast. I’m going to use these works to fend off facts and figures. Next year I just want women of past times to show me how to be my best.”

– Chris Gordon

“One unexpected pleasure of this year was being forced to turn to my own bookshelves whenever I was on the hunt for a new book. In 2021 I’m hoping to continue this trend and make my way through more of the books I’ve had listed as ‘read some day’ around my home.”

– Bronte Coates

“My literary resolution for 2021 is simple – I’d like to return to a more regular reading habit. In 2020, I tended to read books either too quickly or too slowly. And as well as this, I took much longer breaks between books than usual. This year has been a bit of a rollercoaster, so I wasn’t shocked that my reading was slightly disrupted. But I’m hoping that as normality resumes in 2021 (knock on wood!) it will be easier to do a bit of reading every single day.”

– Ellen Cregan

“My reading resolution for next year is to step a little outside of my comfort zone with the books that I choose. So in 2021 I want to read more non-fiction, more memoir, and maybe even dip my toe into current affairs. I want to make a conscious effort to read more diverse voices, particularly people of colour and First Nations authors. I’d also like to take a step back and read some older classics. Every time I do one of those “How many of these books have you read?” quizzes I realise that I’ve got some great gaping holes in my literary back catalogue that I should probably attempt to fill.”

– Lian Hingee