2020 Goals
Posted 15th January 2020
Category: Chit-Chat Genres: N/A
4 Comments
We’re in the second full week of January, I’m writing my goals, and I haven’t that many specifics. I think at this point, because I don’t want to leave it any longer, it’d be best to look at the general ideas I have and stitch them together. I achieved about half my reading goals for last year – I wanted to go back to some review copies I’d missed, which I did, and read more classics. But I didn’t get to the books I’d noted.
I know that I want and need to re-read more; this is simply a continuation of the latter months of last year. I also know that at present, I’ve a plan to finish that ever-present Thackeray and to read a good few more books, if possible, by the end of this month. I’m liking the idea of repeating that in February.
It strikes me that it might be best to concentrate on reading more in general, hesitantly moving a step further than my oft-stated ‘read as much as I comfortably can’. (Although that in itself isn’t cancelled out by trying to read more.)
I also know I want to carry on increasing my reading of classics; I didn’t manage to complete my Classics Club list – a lot did change in five years’ reading – but emphasising the idea that ‘classics’ doesn’t necessarily mean ‘old’ definitely helps. In the last year I’ve noticed an increase in the number of times I’ve picked up on references to classics in other books and articles.
On the first few evenings my Christmas decorations were up, I found myself wanting to watch Outlander series 2 (I watched the first series at that time so there’s a weird feeling of Christmas to it) and following a couple of weeks’ worth of internal debate over the ‘appropriateness’ of watching it when I hadn’t read the second book, I did so. Inevitably I have now decided that yes, I should read the second book, so that’s one more specific thing to add to my list.
So, in 2020 I will aim to:
- Read more by the month, looking at shorter periods of time rather than the longer period of a year, in the hopes that that lessens any thoughts of ‘oh but it doesn’t matter that I’ve not read much in these first two, three, five months, there’s so much of the year left’. (Because I do do that.)
- Read more classics of all kinds (and if one of them happens to be the Charlotte Mary Yonge I planned for last year, great).
- Get to that Thackeray and get it done.
- Read Dragonfly In Amber
Yes, that’ll do.
Do you have any reading goals for 2020? And if you read by year, so to speak, do you ever feel complacent in the first months?
January 17, 2020, 10:14 am
Kelly: Catching up on series is an excellent goal to have! I was thinking a few days back about The River Of No Return, the time travel comedy from a few years ago and, whilst not a series, it supposedly had a sequel. You’ve reminded me to go and check.
Stefanie: Thank you. Happy 2020 reading!
January 21, 2020, 3:39 am
Sounds wonderful! I’m giving myself a break on goals this year because I had a very overwhelming 2019 and am trying to soften things for myself in this election year. So I want to sustain my diversity goals (not more than 60% American authors, not more than 60% white authors), and I’m not going to check out any nonfiction books from the library unless I have earned a library nonfiction chit, which I can earn by reading ONE nonfiction book from my TBR shelf or TWO fiction books from my TBR shelf. And that’s it. And maybe host a Mansfield Park readalong at some point.
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January 15, 2020, 4:21 pm
The only reading goals I’ve set for myself this year are to try and get up to date on most of the series I read and to fit in at least one non-fiction each month. That, plus my monthly book for my reading group, should keep me fairly busy!