Reading Goals 2023

[Kudz]

With the year coming to a close I thought it would be interesting to discuss what our reading goals for next year are.

 

Are you setting a goal of how many books you would like to read throughout the course of the year? Or maybe you prefer setting a number of pages as your goal? Are you concentrating on finishing off all those pesky series that you are in the middle of? Utilising the library more? Reading more classics? Or maybe you are going to have a much more relaxed reading year and not set yourself any goals at all?

 

So, what are your reading plans for next year?

 

Also, if you have had any goals for this year, please free to let us know what they were and whether you managed to achieve them or not.

[lunababymoonchild]

My goal is always to read more than I did the year before. I also want to read as diversly as possible. I liek to mix short with long, old with new, classics with contemporary and fiction with factual.

 

I do have a page per day target but don't always achieve that (it depends on the book) but this year I decided to set a fairly easy to achieve number of books for the year and exceeded that very well. I also read some very long books this year.  Not much in the way of non-fiction this year but I'm happy with the overall breadth that I read. I'll set the same reading goal for next year and carry on as I am.

 

What were/are your goals, Kudz?

[Kudz]

30 minutes ago, lunababymoonchild said:

What were/are your goals, Kudz?

 

I was always going to post my own but was waiting for someone else to post so I wasn’t double posting.

 

I’ve debated over the last few weeks as to what my plans are for next year and have decided that I’m going to have a much more relaxed year of reading and not set any specific number-related goals. I’m not going to worry about how many books I read or how many pages I read a day; I’m not even going to keep track of overall page count which is something that I usually do track.

 

My main goal for this year is to get my own physical TBR down as much as possible before buying any more. Now I know book buying bans don’t work, I have tried them several times in the past, and have always failed spectacularly at them, so this year I’m doing things slightly differently.

 

I briefly mentioned this in another thread but I’m going to participate in The Unread Shelf Project*, whereby I am going to try and read exclusively, or certainly predominately, from my own shelves. For each book I read I am going to put 50p in a book jar, and a further 50p if I unhaul that book. So, each book I read from my shelf has the potential of earning me £1 – which admittedly doesn’t sound very much but I didn’t want to make it too easy on myself; I wanted it to be a bit of a challenge, as the money in the book jar is the ONLY money I am allowed to spend on books throughout 2023, so it's up to me whether I spend it as I earn enough to purchase a book, or whether I save it up and spend it in a book buying spree towards the end of the year.

 

I am, however, going to continue to use and support my local library but I am going to try and limit myself on how many reservations I make, and not go too crazy.

 

32 minutes ago, lunababymoonchild said:

I like to mix short with long, old with new, classics with contemporary and fiction with factual.

 

I’m going to be doing something similar. I have a habit of binge reading authors or genres, so this year I do want to mix things up a bit and alternate them all. I’m actually considering only reading one book per author a month, but we’ll see.

 

* The original Unread Shelf Project idea was started several years ago and details can be found here. I have taken the initial basic idea, along with the title, and have amended it to suit my own needs.

[lunababymoonchild]

Yes, you did post the Unread Shelf Project, I remember now. Great idea, I hope it works.

 

As for binge reading authors, I read on the now defunct Book Group Online that I could read one book from that author's canon a year. This has had varying results insofaras I read all of the Oscar de Muriel's Frey and McGray books and pretty much all of the Ann Cleeves Vera books in the one year but manage, more or less, Thomas Bernhard, William Faulkner and Winston Graham one book a year. TG, WF and WG are all dead which may have made a difference.

 

As for shelf space, I made a big difference with that when I used some gift certificates to buy a Kindle. Restraint is a great thing but ............. reading is good for you so that's really the only challenge imho. 

[KEV67]

I have already big game hunted many of the world's greatest books and I have their heads mounted on the wall. I have not read any Victor Hugo. Maybe I will read Les Miserables. I want to read Hamlet, and then I have done Shakespeare. I will have given him a chance. I don't know why, but I do not get it. I want to read Paradise Lost by John Milton. I want to finish off the Barchester Chronicles. I have enjoyed C18th books more than I expected, so I hope to read another next year, probably The Life and Opinions of Tristram Shandy. I also want to read The Golden Notebook by Doris Lessing.

[Kudz]

On 12/16/2022 at 1:56 PM, lunababymoonchild said:

As for shelf space, I made a big difference with that when I used some gift certificates to buy a Kindle.

 

Kindles are great for saving shelf space and I have hundreds of books on my Kindle but have stopped buying books for it – I think I’ve spoken about this on another thread so won’t go into my reasons why again here – but suffice to say I much prefer reading books with an actual physical copy rather than reading them on a screen. I don't have anything against e-readers in general, it's just my personal preference that’s all. They are a great idea though, they're just not for me.