Today’s Top Ten Tuesday theme is 2016 Resolutions. I love writing goals & resolutions every year, and I especially love reading other people’s, so this topic is a fun one for me. Here are my reading and blogging goals for the coming year.
Reading Resolutions:
- Read my own damn books. Andi picked up on something a lot of book bloggers seem to feel lately – we have a huge amount of wonderful books sitting around on our shelves, waiting to be read while we read galleys, library books, and shiny new books we just brought home from the bookstore. She started the Read My Own Damn Books 2016 reading challenge, and I’m planning on making this a focus in 2016. I’m planning on trying a 1 to 1 ratio rule: for every 1 new book (galley, library book or book I’ve own less than a year) I need to read 1 book I’ve owned for more than a year.
- Continue reading diverse books. Specifically I’d like to read books from at least 15 different countries (more than 2015’s total of 14), and continue to seek out diversity in all areas: race, age, sexual orientation, social or economic status, writers with disabilities, genres outside of my comfort zone, etc. I’d also like to read a wider mix of modern vs. older books; last year I read a very disproportionately modern selection.
- I’d like to finish the next two volumes of In Search of Lost Time: Within a Budding Grove and The Guermantes Way. I’d also like to (finally) read Catch-22 and Cold Comfort Farm. And I’d like to re-read a favorite classic book that I haven’t read in a while (possibly one by Jane Austen, J.D. Salinger, or Charles Dickens).
- Don’t get hung up on numbers. I’m not setting a specific number of books to read as a goal this year. I set my GoodReads goal for 80 just to be able to use it to record my books. I suspect my 2016 total will end up somewhere between last year’s (127 books) and 2014’s (62 books).
Blogging Resolutions:
- Write the posts I want to write. This seems obvious, but I often get caught up in posting things I feel obligated to write, and the things I’m passionate about writing about “someday” get pushed to the back burner. I want to make blogging more joyful, and minimize the times when it feels like a chore.
- Improve my editing. This is my goal for my work writing as well. I want to fine-tune how I edit my own writing, and work on simplicity and clarity.
What are your 2016 reading and/or blogging goals?
I love the thought about not getting caught up on numbers. I turned my GR goal down last year (mostly just to track, like you said) and did the same thing again this year and it feels better. I’ve read less and less over the last three years, but I’m okay with it…the reading is still good and that’s what matters!
Agree! It also makes me feel ok picking up a good chunkster and not worrying it will impact my reading stats. :D
My primary reading goal for any new year is to to finish all the books I acquired the previous year. I brought about a half dozen books from 2015 into 2016, so I want to place a special emphasis on reading those this year. It seems to work well for me as I have nothing still on the shelf from 2014 or before.
As far as other books go, this year I’d like to read Jane Gardam’s Old Filth trilogy and the new one by V. E. Schwab, which I believe comes out next month.
I’m extremely impressed that you are so caught up on your reading. I have books from 2006 sitting around that I haven’t read yet, and hundreds of unread books in general. For years I bought way more than I read (while I continued to re-read and use the library), so at least not I’ve started making sure I buy fewer books that I read each month.
I’ve heard great things about Jane Gardam – I hope you enjoy!
I need to clear my TBR shelf. I’m also one who is addicted to reading netgalley arcs/buying new releases instead of reading what’s been sitting on my shelf for years! :|
Good Luck!
My TTT! :D
It sounds like we have similar TBR list struggles – I hope you make headway with yours! Cheers to 2016!
Diversifying my reading habits is one of my resolutions this year, as well. Most of the books I read are either American or European, and to be honest I never read anything written by my fellow countrymen, let alone from more exotic locales. Let’s see if this is the year that we broaden our literary horizons! :)
Yay! Cheers to diversifying! There are so many Canadian authors I love – I hope you’re able to read some of your fellow countrymen this year too. :D
I love how everyone seems to have the common theme of “scaling back” a bit this year. It just feels right, and it’ll be exciting what comes out of everyone reading the books sitting on their shelves! Maybe some different reviews, other than everyone always reading and reviewing the same book (which can be fun in its own right too)!
I think that’s such a great point – it’s going to be so fun to see what things everyone is digging off their shelves and reading!
Excellent goals! I set a goal of reading 40% non-American authors last year, and while I didn’t have any particular goal in mind about how many countries I wanted my reading to encompass, just having that number in mind made me read books from sooooo many different places. It was excellent. I read new fiction from, like, Congo! And Indonesia! Just cause!
I love that! I’ve been close to hitting around 40% too, but much of that is English or Canadian, so I’m trying to make sure I’m reading from a large variety of countries as well.
Great goals! Yay Proust! I am stuck at the beginning of Guermantes Way but I will finish it this year and you can too! :D
Yay!!! 2016 will be the year of Proust! :D
Good luck with all of your 2016 resolutions!
My TTT: https://jjbookblog.wordpress.com/2016/01/05/top-ten-tuesday-38/
Thank you – good luck to you too! Cheers to a great reading year in 2016!
Thanks!
I also want to read more of my own books as well. I don’t plan to join the challenge thing that’s going around though. I just need to do it.
Good luck with your quest! I know how hard it can be when there are so many great new books or newly discovered books waving for our attention. I hope we’re both able to read more of our own books this year! :)
Great goals! I share a lot of them as well – read my own damn books, diverse reading, and especially writing more posts that are fun to write. I mostly enjoy writing reviews, but I have the most fun when I take the time to do something a little bit different :)
Agree – I enjoy reviews, but love some of the “out of the box” posts too. I’ve also decided that I need to give myself permission to NOT write a review. If I don’t have anything very interesting to say about a book, or strong feelings, I’m going to let myself pass more, and just include a brief line in my monthly recap post.