These are my reading goals for 2021. Pretty straightforward. Probably every booktuber/bookstagramer/book-person is making one of these lists. I do have some specific books picked out for certain goals, but others are more things that I would like to keep in mind while selecting books over the upcoming year.
Any recommendations for books that would fit into certain goal categories would be greatly appreciated!
Goal #1: Read more short stories.
I'll be perfectly honest, short stories aren't really my thing. At least, I think they aren't. I've never really enjoyed reading them and when I got my Fiction Writing degree, 90% of the reading and writing in that program were short stories. I just always feel like short stories don't give me enough to really sink into. I enjoy the feeling of really falling into a story and being enveloped by the characters and plot for an extended period of time. I recently heard someone say that a goal of many short stories is to evoke a single feeling and that seemed like an interesting way to look at them. To be fair, I was pretty indifferent to short stories before I went to college but my degree program really made me grow to borderline hate them. But then again, I barely read any books for fun for the past 7 years since I graduated so maybe I've been a little harsh to the short story form. I do have a few short story collections on hand that I'll give a good try. I also found a collection of essays which I never tried to read because I figured I'd have the same general issues with essay collections as short story collections so I'll give that book a try as well. One of the short story collections was my favorite out of the ones assigned for my classes so I actually kept it instead of reselling it. I gave it 3 starts on Goodreads initially so it will be interesting to see if I like it more or less (or the same) upon a re-read sometime this year.
The books:
Just After Sunset by Stephen King
Goal #2: Read more diverse books
I spent the first half of 2020 finishing my Master's degree and the second half of the year re-discovering my love of reading. I was picking up pretty much any book that sounded good and I'll fully admit I wasn't paying any attention to how diverse the authors or characters in those books were. I was purely focused on if the story sounded like something I would enjoy. And while I will, of course, still pick up books for this reason, I'd like to be more mindful of the choices I make. I was watching this live stream from Bookish Realm where the panel discusses what it means to read diversely, how to track your reading if you want to, and gives some recommendations for diverse books. I found the discussion very helpful in giving different ways to frame what 'diverse' reading can look like. It doesn't all have to be hard-hitting contemporaries (which, I'll admit, is what I first think of). It can be reading anything that is different from yourself (race, sexuality, language, religion, etc). There's also been a ton of discussion this year around the publishing industry and how gatekeep-y it can be for authors of these marginalized voices and stories. I'm a firm believer that showing companies what you want with your dollar can go a long way and I think the more we, as readers, branch out the better. I am drawn much more to genres like thrillers, romance, mystery, and sci-fi over contemporary or literary fiction and one way I'm looking to diversify my reading is by reading translated works. I recently saw this list of "Best International Crime Novels of 2020" and I picked out a few of them to be on my TBR for next year. I also intend to track my reading via a spreadsheet so I can see in what ways I can make improvements to my reading habits to encourage more diversity. I already know I read many more female authors due to the amount of romance I read, but it will be good to see what other gaps I can close in my reading list.
Here are some books already on my TBR:
The Honjin Murders by Seishi Yokomizo
Goal #3: Read more Fantasy
Fantasy is one of those genres that I feel like people are either really into or they're pretty meh about. I think because fantasy stories are, on average, the longest of any genre (not to mention much more prone to being a series) they can be intimidating for readers to pick up. Plus, if you're reading high fantasy then there's the whole world building and/or magic system to set up and explain. I think my main issue with the fantasy genre is that so much of it is series-based. And I fully understand the reasons why but I'm not the target reader for a series. I have some weird line in the sand in my brain that says if I spend a few hours and end up loving the first book in a series only for subsequent books to be let downs, I somehow feel like the time spent reading that first book is also a waste now. I know there are lots of people out there who will recommend certain fantasy series non-stop but unless all the books in the series are a 4 or 5 star for me, I probably won't end up finishing the series. I have read so many first books in fantasy series and really liked them, but then heard sort of bad things about the second book (or third, etc) and never returned to that series. Or, simply, other books have more of my attention and I don't want to spend weeks or months just staying in one world when I could be reading so many different types of books. Overall, I prefer standalone stories across all my reading genres and I would like to read more standalone fantasy books. I do watch a few fantasy-heavy booktubers so I do know about a lot of the recent trends in fantasy in recent years and I sure have heard the merits of Brandon Sanderson touted more than once. I tried to look through some specific stand alone fantasy lists as well as short series that really piqued my interest and have gotten fantastic ratings so far in the hopes that I'd actually maybe finish the whole series.
Here are some books I picked out:
Gideon the Ninth by Tamsyn Muir
The Gracekeepers by Kirsty Logan
Jonathan Strange & Mr Norrell by Susanna Clarke
Goal #4: Backlist physical TBR
My final goal is simply to try and focus on the books I already own. I don't have too many, but most of them are unread. I would like to try and pick up more books from my actual physical shelf rather than buy new ones every time I need a new book. I also read a lot of ARCs, have a Kindle Unlimited subscription, and have an Audible subscription so I do get a chance to read a lot of new releases through these. I already own all of the books I listed out for my short story goal as well as one from my fantasy goal so that's a good start.
Finally, a word about the blog going forward:
I'm trying a new system for the first half-ish of 2020 to see how I like it. The plan for blog posts is as follows:
New full blog posts every Friday
Romance Wrap-up on the 1st and 16th of the month
ARC reviews I will try to get out about a month before the book's release date in order to give people enough time to read the review and pre-order the book if they'd like to.
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