Monday, January 1, 2018

2018 READING GOALS + RETURN TO BLOGGING

Hello, world. I doubt there are many out there that still have my blog on their list, since I haven't updated it since 2011. The truth is, I went through a phase of life where instead of escaping into books, I was escaping into TVs and movies, and I didn't want to analyze or document things, I just wanted to enjoy them. I was still reading here and there, but nothing like I once used to. I'm sure a lot of that had to do with the death of my friend back in 2011, but it was a hard time, regardless of the reasons.

Today I start re-populating the last 7 years onto my blog, using my reviews from Goodreads and backdating the posts, to give you a look at some of the stuff I've been reading in my "off season." Over the past few years, I've slowly started reading more again, and last year, I felt almost back up to speed again, reading 80 books.

I've been enjoying reading, and I don't want to burn myself out, so I've set some attainable goals for this year, and I'm looking forward to reading new things and stretching myself to try new books.  Most of the reviews I post on here will be cross-posted on Goodreads, but I'll hoping to do some more blogging as I go, as well as updates on different challenges I'm participating in.

2018 GOALS:

1. Read 75 books.


2. Complete Book Riot's READ HARDER challenge.

This list of 25 book prompts is there to help stretch my comfort zone, and I'm looking forward to checking this off this list. I'll post more about the challenge later on.

3. Complete the A to Z challenge.

One of my reading friends posted this one, and it looked really fun! Read 2 books for every letter of the alphabet - one list of authors (by last name) A to Z, and one list of book titles A to Z. Theoretically, you could complete this challenge with only 26 books, but wouldn't that be quite the puzzle! I'm going to allow myself to double up and count books I read on both lists, to expedite the process. Hopefully I won't hit December and be scrounging around for books to fit in X, Q, and Z!

4. Work on the 20/19/20 challenge.

This is another challenge I saw a friend post about and immediately wanted to try. This one is actually a multi-year challenge. The goal is to read one book published for each year from 1920 to 2019. I've allowed myself to go back and count books I've read since 2009, when I started using Goodreads to track my reading, and so far, I have 60/100 books read for this one. I have until 2019 to finish, though, so 40 more books in the next two years definitely sounds manageable!

5. Incorporate Monthly themes into my reading.

To focus some of my reading and expand my choices, I'm going to spend certain months focusing on various themes. February is Black History Month, so I'll be primarily books by black authors. March is the big Canada Reads debates, so I'm going to try to read all 5 nominated books, as well as others by Canadian authors. In April, baseball season begins, so I'm going to finally read some of the baseball-related books that have been on my TBR shelves for years. I also want to spend a month reading feminist books (both fiction and nonfiction), books in translation, and maybe spend October reading creepy or horror books.

6. Read one every month: Cancer, Non-fiction, Book club picks

One of the ways I'm hoping to incorporate certain books into my reading plan is by reading one of each type per month. Cancer has effected my family quite a bit, so I'm planning on reading one book with cancer themes every month, whether it be a memoir, fiction, or something else. I also want to read more non-fiction in general this year, so I'm planning on reading at least 1 non-fiction book per month. I also belong to at least 4 book clubs - one that meets with my friends in real life, one for my Ravenclaw Tower, one for the Chilton Running Club, and one for the Unspoiled Podcast. It's not realistic that I read every book club pick every month, and still keep up with my monthly themes, but I'm going to try and fit as many in as I can, while prioritizing my IRL book club because they know where I live and can track me down and yell at me. :)

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