Hi guys! Long time no post. It's been a crazy couple of months, but I truly think it's time to kick my butt into gear and get back to posting on this more regularly. I haven't really felt the urge to book blog a lot recently because I just haven't been reading a lot. So, I had nothing to talk about. In the midst of just life things and participating in NaNoWriMo, there was over a month where I didn't finish a single book. In November, I don't think I even picked up a book. But that's just the way things go.
As we crest over into the new year, it's always good to think about goals for the coming year. 2016 has been a decent year of reading for me, but also the worst in many years. I took long gaps and I had to half my reading goal in order to actual complete it. But I'm hoping for a better 2017! So, I've compiled a few simple goals I'd like to complete.
1. Read 75 books.
This year, my goal was to originally read 100 books. With my reading speed, this seemed entirely possible at the start of the year. By about the middle, I started to doubt. As we made our way towards the end, I knew my best bet was 50 books. So, I don't want to shoot that high from the get-go this time, but I don't want to bring it down to 50. So, middle ground, we're going with 75.
2. Get TBR under 75 books.
My owned-TBR is getting out of control. It's currently sitting at ~145 books, but I'm not 100% sure if that number is correct. But either way, it's a bit much. I'd ideally like to get it under 50 but that doesn't seem like it'll happen so I'm hoping for 75. I know I have a good lot of books I plan to unhaul so hopefully that will help.
3. Read at least 10 classic novels.
As I try and push myself to read more widely, I want to really try and get some more classics under my belt in the new year. Key authors I'm eyeing off are Jane Austen, the Bronte sisters and Charles Dickens. But I have many I'd like to get to. Setting the minimum at 10 books seems doable.
4. Read at least 5 non-fiction novels.
I have so many non-fiction novels I want to read and I feel like I'm always pushing them aside in favour of fiction novels. So, again in my push to read more widely, I'm adding this goal to prioritise the genre a bit. Of course, I'd like to read more than 5, but I don't want to over-shoot these minimums.
5. Get at least to book 5 of the Wheel of Time series.
I started this series at least 2-3 years ago but I've only completed two novels. I'm about 300 pages into the third book, but I put it down a long while ago because I just wasn't in the mood to finish something so dense. But I really, really want to complete this series. So, it's becoming a goal. I'm not going to be crazy and set the goal at finishing the series (for those who don't know, it's 14 books long), but I want to make some progress on it. And, considering I'll definitely have to start the third again, this goal puts me at having to read at least 3 of the books by the end of the year. Not too much pressure.
6. Read more diversely.
This is a really vague goal, but something I want to prioritise nonetheless. I'm very critical of representation and such in novels, so it's always a goal for me to seek out more diverse content. There's seems to be a lot of promising queer lit coming out in 2017 that I'm keen for, and more general diversity across the board as it becomes more of a highlighted topic. I'm excited to not only read new diverse books, but also ones already out there in the book world.
So, yeah, those are my main goals for the year. Having had not the greatest reading year, I'm not making too many crazy goals and I feel confident in my ability to complete all of these. Let me know down in the comments what some of your goals for 2017 are! :)
Until next time!
J, xxx
