Tag: Reading Goals

2019 Reading Goals

Posted January 17, 2019 by Holly in Discussions | 8 Comments

This year we’re all setting reading goals. We’re all participating in Super Wendy’s TBR Challenge, and we plan to bring back our Summer Reading Challenge this year. Below are our personal reading goals.

Holly: I try not to overwhelm myself with reading goals. If I set too many I can’t keep up with, I start getting reading anxiety and it becomes a chore to read at all.

Read at least 200 books

Every year I join the Goodreads Reading Challenge and set my goal at 200 books. I’m not going to change the number this year, but I hope to read 250. I came close in 2018. So fingers crossed.

Review More

I’m going to try to review every book I read in 2019. I’m not going to include re-reads in that, unless I’m re-reading a book I haven’t ever reviewed. I read so much, I often struggle to get all my books reviewed. Hopefully I can change that this year.

Casee

Reading goals make me antsy. It’s just a fact. When I think I’m not meeting a goal, I tend to just quit altogether. It’s kind of like me and exercise. But that’s another story. This year, I have decided to set reasonable goals for myself.

Read at least 100 books

I always join the Goodreads Reading Challenge and this year is no different. I didn’t meet my goal last year I was surprised at how disappointed I was in myself. How hard is it to read 75 books? 2018 wasn’t my reading year. 2019? A new me!

Listen to more audiobooks

It was late last year that Holly introduced me to the wonderful world of audiobooks. Honestly, I had no idea what I was missing. I had listened to an audiobook here and there that I checked out from the library, but really. Audible has opened up a new world for me. A world that I adore.

Review every book

Yes, you read that correctly. This year my goal is to review every since book that I read and/or listen to. I did pretty good last year since I read so few books. I remember a time when reviewing didn’t overwhelm me or feel like a chore. I started to feel that feeling again late last year. The feeling of enjoyment in writing a review. I’m hoping that feeling will continue.

Rowena

I already wrote up my personal goals for the year on my personal blog so if you guys want to catch that, you can click on over and check it out for yourselves.

MY PERSONAL, READING, AND BLOGGING GOALS FOR 2019

What are your 2019 reading goals? Tell us in the comments.

8 Comments

Tagged: 2019 Reading Goals, Casee Says, Casee's Reading, Holly Says, Holly's Reading, Reading Goals, Rowena Says, Rowena's Reading

Reading Outside My Comfort Zone

Posted October 28, 2015 by Holly in Discussions | 19 Comments

I’m a creature of habit. It’s hard for me to break out of my comfort zone. Especially when it comes to reading. I have my favorite authors and I tend to stick with them. When I’m confronted with a new-to-me author, I tend to shy away unless I’ve seen a lot of really great reviews from people in my trust network.

Back in 2012 I decided to branch out and start reading more new-to-me authors and get out of my comfort zone. I ended up trying 32 new authors, which was great, but I thought I could do better. 2013 and 2014 were great years for new authors. I tried 48 in 2013 and 46 in 2014. Considering I average about 200 books a year, that number isn’t great. Breaking it down in months, however, it’s not so bad.

2015 hasn’t been a great reading year, period. Life has been crazy and my reading has suffered. I’ve fallen back into the habit of sticking with my favorite tried and true authors. It’s almost the end of October and I’ve only tried 10 new authors so far this year. I’m really disappointed in myself. It’s much too late to do anything about that number for this year, but I want to get back on track for next year.

Something else I want work on is being more adventurous in my reading. Not just new authors, but genres outside what I currently read. I tend to stick mainly with contemporary romance. I’d like to branch out to read more paranormal romance, fantasy and even sci-fi. The funny thing is, I tend to enjoy fantasy, sci-fi and PNR when I read it. I fall right into the worlds and get swept away by the stories. Yet I shy away from them. I have issues. Clearly. (No comments from the peanut gallery, please)

Going forward, I’m challenging myself to go back to trying more new authors and to being more adventurous in my reading. I’m not going to set a number for myself – I don’t want my reading to become a chore – but I do plan to be more conscious of the books I read.

How about you? Are you pretty good about trying new authors and reading outside your comfort zone? Do you have any reading goals for next year?

19 Comments

Tagged: Holly Says, Reading Challenge, Reading Goals, Reading Quirks

Reading Goals: 2015

Posted January 16, 2015 by Holly in Discussions, Miscellaneous | 10 Comments

Holly: I never used to set reading goals/challenges for myself, because I would always end up with reading anxiety when I did. “I’m supposed to read 100 books this year and it’s December and I’ve only read 75!?!?!” Then I’d get so freaked out I’d give myself readers-block (it’s a real thing!) and not be able to read at all.

The last few years I’ve done a number challenge (211, 200, 200, etc), and did pretty well with it. I didn’t freak myself out because I just considered it a way to track my reads, which I’ve been doing for years now. This year, however, I’m going to set a few reading goals. I want to broaden my reading horizons, and get out of my comfort zone more.

In an effort to do that, I plan to continue to read new-to-me authors. I read 48 new authors in 2013 and 46 in 2014. That averages out to about 4 per month. Not terrible, but when you consider I average approximately 20 books per month, I feel like I could be doing better. I’m also going to try to branch out and read things beside contemporary romance. I read 136 contemps in 2014, and less than half that many paranormals. The numbers of historical, rom-suspense and other sub-genres was negligible. I also joined a reading challenge to help me cull down my TBR pile and motivate me to read outside my comfort zone. I found this challenge on Pinterest. Rowena has agreed to do it with me. (I ‘m also considering this challenge, also found on Pinterest. I haven’t decided if I’ll do one or both.)

To summarize, or the TL;DR version:

1. Read more sub-genres
2. Read more new authors
3. Finish the 2015 Reading Challenge

Rowena: 2015 was going to be the year that I take a break from reading challenges. It was going to be the year that I read whatever I want, whenever I want and not be bogged down with review books and whatever else but I can’t help myself. I like reading challenges. They’re good for variety because like Holly, I read a lot of contemporary books so the goals I’m setting are to get me out of my comfort zone and try new to me things. I won’t know if I like something until I try it, right?

I have a tendency to stick to what I know and what has worked with me. So if a new to me author is popular, I won’t try them out until someone I know personally recommends them. And even then, it might take me years. Haha.

I belong to a book club that meets once a month to discuss books and last year, there were a few times that I didn’t read the book and couldn’t participate in the discussion. That ends this year. I will read and discuss every single book that we choose to read as a club.

So aside from the 2015 reading challenge with Holly, my reading goals are: