2009 Reading Goals

I’ve been pondering my reading goals for 2009 for a few weeks, and have settled on a list that I think will be challenging yet attainable.

When setting the number of total books to aim for, I almost went with 80, a much safer number since I read 87 this year. But I figured that I’m so close to 100 that I might as well shoot for it. I’d like to read more graphic novels and kid’s lit books anyway this year, so doing that will help me reach my goal.

100 books in a year comes out to 8.3333 books per month, so I’m going to aim for 9 books per month. In the past few years I’ve always had a few “dud” months where I barely read anything. (Like June of 2008).  If I’m going to hit 100 books I’ll definitely need to avoid dud months. I don’t want to avoid longer books either, so I’ll definitely need some kid’s lit and other fast reads to help balance out the longer books.

For my short story goal – my goal is to read a variety of stories from: The New Yorker, McSweeney’s, The Paris Review, and many various anthologies I own. I won’t count individual stories in a short story collection by a single author if I read them all consecutively and finish the book.

As for the specific books to read, there was no rhyme or reason to their selection, they are just classics that I’ve owned and been meaning to read for a while.

And one last goal that I didn’t include in the list (because it’s hard to quantify) – I’d like to buy more of my books at independent bookstores. I already buy quite a bit at Indie stores, especially Strand, but I could definitely improve. Particularly when it comes to brand new books, Amazon’s40% off has been too affordable to resist. I’d even like to shop more at the Hoboken Barnes and Noble (over Amazon) – I love having a place to buy new books right in Hoboken, especially on the weekends. The only other bookstore in Hoboken is great, but only sells used books and has a limited selection. I’m not Anti-Amazon, but in this economy it’s much healthier to support local stores and workers.

One last, important thing: I need to buy way fewer than 191 books this year! My wallet and apartment bookshelves demand it!

So – we’ll see how I do! I have a lot of other personal goals this year that will consume time, so if I come up shy of 100 books read I won’t be too surprised. But I figure it’s best to aim high, and it’d be wonderful to have a 100 book year in 2009.

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