Happy New Year, book friends! I spoke a bit about my bookish goals for the year in my year-end stats review post and in my post for the “This Time Next Year” tag. I love the New Year vibes and hearing about everyone’s goals, so I’d like to revisit them here and go into a bit more detail. After all, I do enjoy asking the internet to hold me accountable for things!
Though I’ve moved away from the tradition of setting “resolutions” at the New Year, I do like to roll into January with a few goals and intentions. For me, goals are quantifiable checkmark items, whereas intentions are more nebulous i.e. “run a 5K” vs. “run more regularly.”
Book-wise, I have a few standard goals I aim for each year, and like to add in a sprinkle of something different each year as well. So, let’s take a look at what 2022 will bring to my reading life!
Goodreads Goal: 100 Books
The Goodreads challenge is a bit of a controversy in the book world, for a variety of reasons. One being that Amazon bought Goodreads a while back, spurring some readers to divest. Another is that it can have a sort of “quantity over quality” vibe that some readers, fairly enough, don’t approve.
For me, the goal is a baseline cheerleader in the background. I don’t beat myself up for reading slumps or pursuing other hobbies, and if I don’t hit the goal, I don’t hit the goal. But having one and watching each book I read chip away at it is a fun part of the reading year for me, so I personally still set a Goodreads goal.
I’ll end 2021 at around 80 books read, and that’s with a slow start to the reading year. If I maintain my current pace, I think that my updated goal of 100 books should be pretty easily achievable. But, we’ll see what the year brings! I am getting married in April, after all!
Read Harder Challenge
Each year, Book Riot releases a list of challenge tasks with the aim of more diverse reading. And each year, I cherrypick this challenge as a way of expanding my reading horizons. Frankly, there are always one or two tasks I simply have zero interest in completing, and I don’t believe in wasting my reading time simply to check a box.
Since I started expanding my reading in this way, I’ve encountered a lot of great books I wouldn’t have read otherwise. For instance, this year I read There’s No Such Thing as an Easy Job for the “book in translation” task, and it ended up being one of my favorite reads of the year!
I’m excited to say I’ve already picked a few books for 2022’s challenge tasks, including “romance with a protagonist over 40” (How to Marry Keanu Reeves in 90 Days) and “biography of an author you admire” (Jane Austen: A Life). I’m also quite confident I will not be reading a political thriller or a horror novel, so it looks like another year of not fully completing the challenge tasks. Par for the course, that.
Read 5 Self-Care/Spiritual Books
I’m going to secretly aim for one per month, but realistically hope to get to at least five self-care and spiritual titles this year.
First up: The Witch’s Book of Self-Care this month, then a buddy read of Women Who Run with the Wolves in February!
Start a Little Free Library
Now that I’m living in a house for the foreseeable future, I’ve set my sights on installing a Little Free Library.
Since I leveled up to the salaried work life, I have a tendency to acquire a lot of books that I don’t end up loving enough to hang onto. Rather than schlepping out to Half Price Books for a few pennies, I like the idea of sharing the books with my neighborhood. So, I snagged a build kit and plan to craft the IRL version of Your Book Friend in 2022. I’ve got some reading up to do on being a good LFL steward, but I can’t wait to dig in.
Make a Dent in the BOTM Stack of Shame
Even though I’m generous with the “skip this month” button on Book of the Month, I still manage to acquire books that sound great at the time, but which I don’t read upon arrival. Last year I started off by reading through some of this backlog, and ended up really enjoying some of the books I finally got around to (A Woman is No Man was phenomenal).
This year, I’m doing it again and participating in Bookish Bingo on Instagram, wherein we’ll all read through our Book of the Month backlog in January. I’m trying to be less precious about my collection and plan to pass along any books I don’t read by the end of the year. Book of the Month edition or not, my bookshelves need a bit of a cleanup this year.
Keep Up Your Book Friend
Since I returned to book blogging, I’ve found such a wonderful community of fellow readers. I really enjoy writing about books on the internet and connecting with my online book friends, and it’s something I want to continue in 2022. I won’t set specific follower or post numbers goals, but I do want to keep up with consistent posts throughout 2022.
Thanks for being along for the ride with me — you make it so much better!
That’s All, Friends
Five goals/intentions feels like a solid list for the reading year, I think! I’m also trying my hand at a physical book journal, but that’s more experiment than goal, so we’ll see how it goes.
As we head into the new year, I hope you are well and hanging in there! If you’re setting any goals (reading or otherwise) I’d love to hear about them. And if your goal is just to get through another year of… all the things, that’s perfectly okay, too.
Happy New Year, book friends! Here’s to more books and reading in 2022.
Your Book Friend 