2018 Reading Goals

Hello everyone! We’re just a few days short of the New Year and it’s time for me to talk about my 2018 reading goals. After failing to accomplish almost all of my 2017 reading goals, I had decided not to plan out any reading goals for 2018, hoping for a more ‘natural’ style of reading, but somehow I’ve managed to come up with some basic goals I have in mind. These are not clear-cut goals, and I’m not pressurizing myself with thoughts like “I have to complete these goals” because that’s just not going to happen. These goals are mainly to shape and make my reading what it will be in 2018. My 2017 reading survey will be up soon, and according to the reading year I had in 2017, these are the things I’m keen on doing in 2018.

The Goodreads Goal

I’m going to keep this goal exactly as I did last year. Initially my goal is going to be 1 book; then every 10 books that I read, I’m going to keep increasing my goal by 10 books. That way, I’m never officially ‘behind’ track, and I will always have completed my challenge :D

I personally find the Goodreads challenge pressurizing because GR keeps mentioning how many ‘books you’re behind’ and whether you’re on track or not etc. I just hate that constant track-keeping – so I’m going to bend the rules a little and do it my own way :P

My Physical TBR

I’m not making any hard-and-fast goal about reducing my physical TBR. Throughout the year, I will make a conscious effort to do so, but am not pressurizing myself with numbering this goal in any way. I will put up two TBR check-ins during the year – where I will list all of my physical TBR books – which will be the basis for me to judge what books I’ve been buying and how I’m doing on reading them. I want to see how this year goes by following this method, and accordingly, I will plan for 2019.

Project TBR 2018

15 books I’m very, very, very keen on reading in 2018.

Genre-Based Reading

So looking at my reading in 2017, there are certain things I plan to do in 2018. There are certain genres I want to give a lot of emphasis on, and certain genres I want to completely avoid. I’m going to try my best to avoid YA in the coming year. I had anyway been reading less and less of YA contemporary, but now I also want to cut down on YA fantasy. Last year made me realise that I don’t enjoy YA fantasy nearly enough as I used to do before, and it might be time to cut down on it a little. I’m planning on re-reading a few favorites, and I am excited for a few YA fantasy series. Apart from those, I will probably not pick up anything in the genre. As for YA contemporary, I hardly have any that I’m looking for reading the next year.

I want to focus a lot on thrillers and adult fiction this year. Adult fiction comprising contemporary, fantasy and romance, and thrillers comprising both adult and YA. I feel like I enjoyed these genres the most last year, and I’m going to continue with reading them.

Diverse Books

This seems like a given : I’m going to shape my reading to be as diverse as possible in 2018. I read quite a few diverse books in 2017 and the next year is (hopefully) going to be no different. I have no numbered goal for this, it’s just going to be a conscious effort to make sure that the books I pick up are as diverse as possible.

Authors

So, this isn’t a hard-and-fast rule/goal – it is just something I want to keep reminding myself during reading throughout the year. There are a few authors I’d really like to get into this year, namely Haruki Murakami, Margaret Atwood and Paul McEwan. Apart from Murakami, I haven’t read any of these authors before, and would love to begin now. I have no numbered goal as to how many books to read by each author, but anything above 4 would be really good for me.

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So that was it! Those were all the goals I’m going to keep in mind during the 2018 reading year. I feel like they’re easy, especially because they’re not defined in numbers and are mostly for shaping my reading during the year.

What about you guys? Do you have any reading goals? How well did you do on your 2017 reading goals? Please share below!