2011 Reading Goals

After much thought, I present to you my reading goals for this upcoming year. :)


1| Read 100 books.
Since I've met this same goal the last 2 years, part of me feels like I should increase my overall reading goal, but to be honest, I like round, even numbers too much.  And though I like pushing myself, I think upping my goal to another round number, like 125 or 150, would be too stressful to sustain. Above all else, I read for enjoyment, and I never want to lose that.


2| Read long books.
There's something thrilling about finally finishing a hefty book, and I want to continue to challenge myself to pick up and read the big books that are only too easy to pass over. I will definitely be reading Outlander by Diana Gabaldon, as it is one of our book club picks for this year. I also hope to finally read The Mysterious Island by Jules Verne, as well as another epically long Russian tome or two.


3| Read Russian books.
Yes, I failed miserably at this goal last year, but I'm really hoping to do better at it this year.  Hopefully, by starting with specific books in mind, I can be more successful.  On my list to read are The Winter Queen by Boris Akunin, which I began about 5 years ago and never finished; Demons by Fyodor Dostoyevsky, who is my favorite Russian author; One Day in the Life of Ivan Denisovich by Aleksandr Solzhenitsyn, who I have only ever read short stories by; and Death and the Penguin by Andrei Kurkov, a modern Russian novel, and one that seems different from any of the others I've read.


4| Blog.
I don't think my Weekly Reading blog posts last year really accomplished what I wanted - a different perspective on my reading. Sure, sometimes what I wrote about each book was different than my Goodreads review, but as the year went on, I found myself copying and pasting more and more. What I've decided to do instead this year is write about my books in sets of 10, ranking and comparing them to one another. Every time I hit 10 books, I'll write a post, talking about each book and ranking them in order of preference, from #1 to #10. Hopefully this will be a unique enough perspective to not grow boring. It will be a challenge, I'm sure, to pick favorites, but a good challenge!


And that's it! Hopefully with only a few specific goals, I'll be able to really focus on them this year.