2024 Reading Goals
Hello again!
Apologies for the disappearance - I decided that starting a blog and moving house to a new county at the same time would be feasible… yikes.
Anyway, I am back now and ready to get writing! I have reviewed my reading stats from last year and have decided to set some reading goals for 2024 that I would like to achieve. I am a firm believer that you can set goals anytime, not just in January when everyone feels the pressure to change themselves entirely and decides to set unachievable New Years Resolutions that they then break almost immediately (can you tell I hate New Years?) So, here I am, setting my reading goals at the end of March. No time like the present!
Without further ado, here are my 2024 reading goals:
Read more books
This seems super obvious, but I want to actually read more books in 2024. In 2023, I read 22 books, so this year I am aiming for 30. This may not seem like a lot, but for someone who works full-time, volunteers for a charity, has a partner, 2 dogs, a house and a blog to maintain, I think that is quite enough!
Read more non-fiction books
You heard it here first folks - I’m in my non-fiction era. Last year, I managed a grand total of 3 non-fiction books, just 14% of my overall reading for 2023, which is not many. I have some amazing non-fiction on my TBR (I’m looking at you, Roxane Gay and Maisie Hill) just sitting there waiting for me to get stuck in, so how could I possibly say no? I think it’s important to expand your horizons and make sure you’re constantly learning new things, so hopefully increasing my non-fiction reading will be the way to do it in 2024.
Review the books I am reading (properly)
Listen, just giving my books a star rating on StoryGraph is no longer cutting it for me. I want to write lengthy book reviews, with all my favourite plot points, my likes, my dislikes, the protagonists I loved even when I wasn’t supposed to - all of it. Not only do I actually want to write them, but I want to get better at writing them, and the only way to do that is through practice. Watch this space for my 2024 book reviews!
Read at least one fantasy book
Look, don’t come after me for this, but I am not a fantasy girlie. I have big book fear (my average page number for 2023 was under 300), and one fantasy book is normally as thick as a stack of 4 of my average fiction picks. One fantasy read that has been on my TBR, however, for quite a long time is The Priory of the Orange Tree by Samantha Shannon. Dragons? Yes. Badass female characters? Sign me up. 830 pages of really complex word building? Not so much. But, this year I am determined to at least try.
Borrow rather than buy
Now, hear me out with this one. I love to buy books, I really do. Working in a bookshop that offered me discount was extremely dangerous - I definitely spent more than I earned! I have just moved to a new area and one of the first things I have done is signed up for a library card at my local library. Libraries truly are sanctuaries in the modern world - they are one of the last places left on Earth in which you are not obligated to spend money. Plus, they have some amazing events for the community that are normally free to attend, and my local library lets you borrow up to 20 books at a time! I have already borrowed 4, which have moved to the top of my TBR.
And there you have it! Please let me know what your reading goals for 2024 are and how you’re getting on with them already. If you want to keep up to date on what I'm reading (and whether I’m actually sticking to my goals) then you can follow me on StoryGraph here.