2022 Reading Goals

 'Tis that time of year again already!  Time to set some reading goals.  

I set some goals for 2021 and, to be honest, they did not go the way I had planned.  While I did not meet those goals, I did use my attempts at meeting them as a learning opportunity.  For example, I wanted to branch out and read some fantasy books and I had a few picked out that sounded interesting and had good reviews.  However, when I would pick them up I just couldn't get into them and I just realized that I really prefer my fantasy in my TV/movies and I like reading romances and mystery/thriller/horror.

So for 2022, my goals are more focused around doing things I already like doing/reading and just wanting to do more of them.  So here they are, in no particular order:

 

Goal: More participation in read-a-thons/reading challenges!

I know these aren't everyone's cup of tea, but I participated in a few read-a-thons this year and I had a really fun time with all of them.  I really liked participating and seeing what other people were reading (plus adding quite a few books to my TBR list).  I don't take these challenges too seriously so if I don't complete all the squares of a bingo board, for example, it doesn't bother me.  I've mostly used them as a way to have fun with books I was already going to read and work through my TBR a bit.  For this year, the ones on my radar currently are:

Year of Smut by @ratetheromance on Instagram

Nordic Noir November by @readbydusk on Instagram

2022 POPSUGAR reading challenge 

And others as they pop up. I know last year there were a few weekend read-a-thons that I participated in and even those shorter ones are really fun.

 

Goal: More audiobooks!

One of my personal New Year's resolution is to get back into a lot of hobbies I've let slide in the past few years (knitting, cross stitch, gardening, painting miniatures, etc).  I have a ton of books I want to read and the past year has pretty much been mostly just reading as a hobby so I think listening to audiobooks while getting back into other hobbies would be a good compromise to reach.  Also, I do pay for an Audible membership that I really need to use more to make it worthwhile.  I have a goal of reading at least 1 audiobook per month.  (As of Jan 1, 2022 I have 15 unread audiobooks already purchased and 6 credits to use)

Goal: More backlist reading!

This one is two-fold.  

First: I want to read more backlist from authors I really love.  This is mostly romance-focused because so many romance authors that are new to me have huge backlists I can sink into (but I do have a few thriller/mystery writers in mind as well).  I was really focused this year on trying new to me authors and reading widely but there are a few key authors that I would really love to go through their backlist and pick up some of their older titles.  

Example authors would be: Lucy Score and Peter Swanson (I already have 2 of his books in my audiobook pile above)

Second: I want to read more publishing backlist, which for me in 2022 would mean reading books published in 2020 or earlier.  For this past year, only 26% of my reads were published in 2019 or before.  I know there's so much focus on new/upcoming releases but there are so many great books coming out every year that I want to not lose sight of them just because I didn't get to read them right away.

I also have a good number of physical books that I own that I really want to get around to reading and most of these I've had on my shelves for the past 5-10+ years.  I have a goal of 1 physical read from my current collection per month.  (as of Jan 1, 2022 I have read 25/59 of my physically owned books - marked with red dots below)

Goal: More fun reading projects!

I did one reading project for fun in 2021 (Final Girl vs Final Girl vs Final Girl) and I had a fun time with it.  I'd like to do more posts like that in 2022.  I know these sort of reading projects videos are popular with bookish accounts on YouTube so maybe I'll see if some of those projects would do well in a written format.  I do have two projects in mind already:

First: reading through the Robert Hunter series by Chris Carter that comes highly recommended by @seb.reads on Instagram. It is a police procedural/serial killer series following LAPD detective Robert Hunter and the reviews on Goodreads are absolutely stellar for all the books in the series.  There are currently 11 books in the series - the first published in 2009 and the most recent in 2020. I really do love detective series but it can be so hard to get into them when they are this far along and while most of them have standalone mysteries in them, the overarching plot and characters are a real draw for me.  So I'm planning on reading 1 book from this series a month this year.

Second: I've also noticed that there are a number of movies and TV shows coming out recently based on books that were vaguely on my radar.  I think it would be fun to pick a few of them to read/watch like I know a lot of people are doing right now with The Wheel of Time/Dune/The Witcher.  I'm thinking maybe once a quarter?  Basically this idea is just floating around in my head at the moment and I'll need to think about it a little more before deciding on anything.

Those are my big goals for 2022 and I'm feeling a lot more positive about these goals than my 2021 goals because these are focused on doing the things I already like and just doing more of them!