Goals 2025
Posted 14th February 2025
Category: Chit-Chat Genres: N/A
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The good thing is that I’m finding a routine. The bad thing is I’m not yet great at it and so I’m behind on my usual end of year and start of year housekeeping. That said, I have spent enough time thinking about what my goals should be that I’ve come to a firm decision about Vanity Fair, the book that has been languishing on my reading list, moved from year to year with no reading movement.
I suppose the first thing to say, before continuing on my Thackeray decision, is to say that, broadly, I’m going back to a reading goal I had some previous years – I will read as much as I comfortably can. In looking at past goal posts I noticed I haven’t written one since 2021, which makes sense though still surprised me – I think, even now, I’m starting to forget just how stressed I was – and, more of a surprise was the fact I’d actually listed some goals. I thought I’d said ‘read as much as I comfortably can’ more often.
That dealt with, then, Thackeray – I have decided to leave his tome on my 2024 reading list and not carry it forward. I know – unthinkable! But it’s time. I have chosen to deliberately leave it in its unfinished…glory?… on that list instead of removing it as I usually do if I decide I haven’t read enough of a book to carry it over from one year to the next. Let it stand as a testament to my on-off history with it and also, if I do end up reading it some time, I think considering that new time to be a blank slate would be best. This all said, you may be surprised by the following. While I don’t want to make any hard and fast goals, I like the idea of some things I’ll aim to do if I can:
1) Here it goes: I’m going to see if I can read Vanity Fair, as though it’s new to me. I’m going to keep it in mind for when my reading time is not too busy and have a ponder.
2) I would like to finish Drums Of Autumn which I barely started in December. For all my talk of it being a tradition for me, I failed to read Outlander at Christmas.
3) I’d like to go back and finish the Venatrix Chronicles, my favourite fantasy series that I flew through right until the seventh and final book where I stopped because I wasn’t ready for it to end. I do not want to do another The Amber Spyglass and wait for years – that way leads to too much anticipation which will render any successful ending not good enough. (Not that I found the Pullman to be any objective success.)
4) I want to read more fantasy. TikTok and the romantasy trend is helping and I have some very popular books on my shelves waiting to be read.
5) I would like to re-start and read the whole of Burney’s Cecelia. I was very into it, in fact I checked my Kobo and I was 70% through volume one, but, likely, rabbits… Actually, the thing that concerns me most with Burney is that I don’t remember much at all of Evelina even though I found it an okay enough read. Please don’t tell Jane Austen.
And that’s plenty. If I do the above, great, if I don’t, I’ll have read other great things.
What are your reading goals for this year?
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February 14, 2025, 2:05 am
Vanity Fair is not a difficult book to read. You get into it rather quickly and the characters are fascinating. Give it a go, I am sure you will not regret it. I did enjoy it.