My 2018 Bookish Goals

New Year's Resolutions

       Happy New Year's everyone! I love this time of year because we can reflect on the past year and set goals for the next. There are a handful of personal resolutions I have set for myself, but I thought I would share my five book-related goals for the new year!

1. Goodreads Goal - Read 60 Books

       Ah, Goodreads. It is the center of the book community and provides us with the ultimate reading goal. This year, I read a total of 67 books, which blew my goal of 50 out of the water. In a perfect world, I would like to read one book a week all year, but I know how 

busy and inconsistent my schedule is throughout the year, it varies from week to week. I have settled on 60 because although I might not consume books at a constant rate, I read enough books in the summer to compensate my slower reading when I am busy during the school year.

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2. Read 3 Classic Novels - (On my own accord)

       I am one of those people who always say that they want to read classic novels and then never get around to it. So, I have decided that 2018 is the year of the classics for me, with my goal being three books. I know that one is going to be Jane Eyre, thanks to my grandmother who has been dying for me to read it. One will be 1984 because I feel like I should read it after listening to Ariel Bissett (one of my favorite BookTubers) rave about it for years now. I am also thinking about Fahrenheit 451, since it’s a classic dystopian. Dystopian novels are always something that I forget that I love, so when I get a chance to pick up a new one, I do so. I am really hoping that reading these classics will spark a new love of them.

​3. Read Every Book on my (physical) TBR Pile

My TBR Pile 2018

       As a book buyer and a book lover, I am (surprisingly, even to myself) not one to buy books faster than I can read them. I will usually have eight or nine books at most in my pile, and get it down to two or three books that I have had for years. As soon as I get to this point, I will go online and get four or five new books to read. In doing this, I have two or three books on my tangible TBR Pile that I have had for years, and my goal for this year is to read the ENTIRE PILE before I buy new books. I figure that once I get to this point once, it will be easier to get through the new pile, in turn starting a cycle of buying when I need to read, rather than trying to catch my reading up to my buying.

4. Kill Reading Slumps Early On

       I hope that by starting the TBR Pile habit, it will help me to achieve this goal as well. Between school, homework, sports, clubs, and running my blog and social media accounts, there is little time left for me to sit down and read a book. My busy schedule can cause some problems, but more importantly, it can cause reading slumps. You know, the big, scary, book-eating monster that feeds on your will to read? Yeah, I think we have all spent some time with him. I know that these slumps are inevitable, especially for avid readers, but I hope by only buying books immediately before I read them, I can always be buying the book that suits my mood at the moment.

​5. Read Every Night Before Bed

       We have all been there, where we have said we were going to go on Instagram for just five minutes before going to sleep, and we look up and 45 minutes are gone, just like that. Using my phone in bed has become a more profound problem in the past weeks. I hope to replace this bad habit by taking my book to bed instead of my phone. Hopefully, this practice will not only eliminate my excess phone usage, but it will also carve out a designated time in my schedule for reading every day, and help me sleep better. I also think that reading before bed will help kill my reading slumps by making time for me to get into the book I am reading.

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        I hope that I can achieve each of these goals throughout the year, and I will be checking back in on these goals halfway through and at the end of the year!
       What are your goals for 2018, reading or otherwise? Do you have any of the same? Let me know in the comments, and maybe we can be goal buddies!

Happy New Year,
Ashton

For last year's words belong to last year's language 
And next year's words await another voice.

— T.S. Eliot, Four Quartets