Holy January 2022, Batman! I can hardly believe it’s a fresh new year when yesterday was clearly my 2020 pandemic birthday/first day of lockdown. 

I’ve been enjoying my week and a half off from work around the holidays and am in full speed ahead New Year goal planning. Naturally, this has inspired me to map out a TBR for the month. 

If you’ve been around the Your Book Friend-verse long enough, you know I’m more of a mood reader than a planner, but I’ve got a few specific book goals this year that mean I’ll be trying to map out my reading a bit more specifically. That is, unless something shiny comes along (looking at you, new Emily Henry novel). 

Without further ado, let’s get to the January TBR! 

(Full disclosure: Specific book links are Bookshop.org affiliate links which earn me a small commission should you choose to purchase. Book of the Month links are referral codes.)

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Read Harder Task of the Month: Read A Biography of an Author you Admire

As in prior years, I’ve set my sights on accomplishing some chunk of the Book Riot Read Harder challenge. The first task on the list is one I initially thought I’d skip — read a biography of an author you admire. 

I haven’t read a biography since I stopped receiving homework assignments to do so, as I much prefer memoir and personal essays to learn about a person’s life. But, then I went about cleaning up my TBR and saw that Jane Austen: A Life has been living there for quite some time. Voila — a book that fits the task! 

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NetGalley/Review Copies of the Month

I aspire to get my feedback ratio in tip-top shape this year, which means I’m going to read one or two ARCs from NetGalley each month, based on pub dates. Here’s this month’s picks: 

Much Ado about a Latte by Kathleen Fuller (out January 4th 2022)

This one is actually Christian fiction, which I didn’t realize from the synopsis when I initially requested it. I never read this genre, as I don’t identify as Christian, so it’s interesting to see the little ways this comes up in the plot, which isn’t itself centered around religion (yet). 

Open: An Uncensored Memoir of Love, Liberation, and Monogamy by Rachel Krantz (out January 22nd, 2022)

I’m personally in a monogamous relationship and don’t plan to change that any time soon, but I really enjoy reading memoirs about people with lifestyles and beliefs that differ from my own, so I knew I had to pick this up! 

We’ve Got to Stop Meeting Like This by Donna Y. Ferris (released January 1st, 2022)

I’m participating in a book tour for this memoir later in the month, and I’m excited to dig in. Any memoir that begins with someone signing on for Yoga Teacher Training is a memoir I’m interested in. 

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Spiritual / Self-Care Book of the Month

This month’s pick in my goal to read a self-care / spiritual book per month is The Witch’s Book of Self-Care. I’ve already started it and am really enjoying the framing of self-care thus far. 

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Book of the Month Book of the Month

I’m trying to narrow down my stack of unread BOTM picks, so I’ll be reading The People We Keep and hopefully a couple of others, as well. 

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There we have it — a month of reading planned out (in pencil, of course). I look forward to populating the pages of my 2022 reading spreadsheet and watching each read chip away at my Goodreads goal.

What are you reading this month, book friends? Help me restock the TBR!

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