Lately, I’ve been toying with the idea of creating a personal curriculum not something academic or rigid, but a quiet, self-guided journey through a particular genre or theme. Like tracing the Gothic’s damp corridors, wandering through modernist alienation, or following the thread of longing across centuries of prose and poetry.
I keep wondering how people go about it do you start with a list, a question, a single author? Or do you just read one book that leads you to another until a pattern quietly forms?
Another dilemma: is it better to read widely, to get a broad sense of the genre’s terrain, or slowly and deeply, so each book sinks into you fully before moving on? I can never decide if I want breadth or intimacy in my reading.
And for those who annotate how do you do it? Marginalia, notebooks, color codes, or just memory and mood? Sometimes I feel like my notes say as much about me as the text itself.
Would love to hear from anyone who’s built their own reading path what it looked like, and what you discovered along the way.
by Sweet-Opportunity111