Last year, I set twenty bookish goals and completed seven of them. So this year I’m going to set just just four broad reading goals, and we’ll see what happens.
1. Read 100 Books
I set a Goodreads Reading Challenge every year. For the last two years, I set my goal lower than I normally do because of my PhD program. Classes always take away from my outside reading time, and depending on the course we may not read many full books. But this year I only have one semester of classes, one of which is an independent study I’m designing, and then I’ll just be reading for my qualifying exams. So I’ll be reading a lot and figured I’d up the goal a bit.
2. Read one work of nonfiction each month
I’ve noticed that I buy a lot of nonfiction but don’t read it quickly, resulting in it piling up. I just tend to gravitate toward fiction when I want something to read. So I’m going to try to read one nonfiction book every month. Depending on what books I’ll pick, it will be helpful and even necessary for my research.
3. Read four poetry collections
I have a complicated relationship with poetry, and as a result I tend to avoid it. But since I’m getting a PhD in literature, poetry kind of comes up a lot, so I think it’s time to fix this. There was one year when I tried to read one collection per month, but that ended up being way too much. So I’m going to try to pick up four collections throughout 2021.
4. Read all of the books for my classics book club
I’ve been part of this book club for about four years now, and I love it. But due to my own poor time management, I haven’t been able to attend many of the meetings or read many of the books while I’ve been in school. So I want to fix that, starting with this month’s read: The House of Mirth by Edith Wharton.
What are your reading goals for 2021?
A Literary Princess 