New year, new books.
Every year I set New Year’s resolutions and almost always completely fail them. Only resolutions that I managed to fulfill in 2018 were to visit a new country and acquire a new habit.
When it comes to bookish resolutions I actually did pretty well there. My resolutions for this year were: read 80 books, buy fewer books and purge to-be-read pile. Done, done and done. But in 2019 I’m taking things to the whole new level. Here are my 9 rather ambitious bookish resolutions for 2019:
- Set a reading goal and hopefully read 90 books
- Complete a series or trilogy
- Read one 1000 pages long book
- Read a book by an author I never heard about
- Explore a new genre
- Review all books I read on Goodreads
- Take a literary walking tour
- Read a book recommended by a friend
- Try audiobooks
Set reading goal
My reading goal for this year on Goodreads is 1 book. I already fulfilled my goal by finishing Scythe on January 1st. However, every year my goal behind the goal is to read 100 books. This has yet to happen and maybe 2019 is the year when I finally fulfill this goal. I am hoping to read at least 90 books this year. In 2018 I read 87 with a total of over 30 000 pages.
I think that it’s great to set your goal low and then reset it near the end of the year if you have read more books. When I set my goal at 1 book I don’t feel the pressure to read more I just read whenever I feel like it.
Complete a series or a trilogy
This is another goal that I set for myself every year since 2012. Every year since then I managed to fulfill this goal. Usually, I don’t pick exactly which trilogy or series I want to complete but this year I am hoping to finish Hainish Cycle by Ursula K. Le Guin. There is a total of 8 novels and 13 short stories in Hainish or Ekumen Cycle. In 2018. when I started reading this cycle I read 2 novels and 2 short stories and I believe it’s possible to read them all in 2019. 🙂
Read one 1000 pages long book
I have been wanting to read War and Peace by Leo Tolstoy ever since I was in high school. This book is one of the ultimate goals for any bookworm. It’s over thousand (1000) pages long and it’s a translation from Russian. I am very excited to hopefully this year read this monumental book. In high school, we read Anna Karenina by Leo Tolstoy and I liked that book but for this, I am having higher expectations.
Read a book by an author I never heard about
In order to fulfill this one I am planning on going to the bookstore and pick a book by an author, I have never heard of based on the cover and/or synopsis. This is a fun way of discovering something new in a kind of a whimsical way.
Explore new book genre
I have a certain obsession with postmodernism for a while. I don’t know much about postmodernism but I want to learn. It’s a genre that is very difficult to describe and it’s very versatile in terms of what is actually considered a post-modernistic literary work. This year I hope to get more into both theoretical aspects of postmodernism and actual books.
Review all books I read on Goodreads
Another one of my bookish resolutions for every year is to review all the books I read on Goodreads. I never managed to fulfill this goal. I start strong at the beginning of the year and then I become too lazy to write reviews so I just rate books. Hope that this year I actually review all the books.
Take a literary walking tour
In May of 2018. I visited Stockholm, capital of Sweden for 8 days. It was one of the most amazing trips of my life. I completely fell in love with Stockholm, Sweden, Swedish culture and nature. While in Stockholm with my boyfriend we explored a dozen museums, cafes, and restaurants but we didn’t manage to visit one of Stockholm’s biggest attractions – Millenium (Stieg Larsson) walking tour. I read about some amazing literary tours around the world and I hope that I take one of them this year. Maybe in Paris or Prague. 😉
Read a book recommended by a friend
This is one goal that should be easy to fulfill. Even though I am usually the one in my family and group of friends who usually recommend books that don’t mean that I don’t get a lot of recommendation. This year I will read a book that is recommended by a friend that is not the genre that I usually read. I get a lot of recommendations for graphic novels so perhaps I read one of them.
Try audiobooks
Everywhere I look people are talking about audiobooks, on Instagram, on YouTube, on Goodreads. It’s time for me to try audiobooks! A lot of my friends love audiobooks so maybe I will like them as well. 😉
These are bookish resolutions for 2019. They are ambitious but not particularly hard to fulfill. At the end of June, I will make a mid-year post and tell you how is my resolution fulfilling going.
Feel free to comment below your bookish (or not-bookish) resolutions for 2019. 🙂
M.