On Reading | Looking Back and Looking Ahead.

I'm glad I can say 2016 was a good year...for reading! Way back in January, I set a goal to read 60 books. I did that...and a few more.

Even discounting Fox's Socks (the one I shelved "with Charlie"), that total surprised me. It certainly didn't feel like I was finishing two books a week, but that's what the numbers say I averaged. The Read Harder Challenge and Summer Bingo certainly helped the total (those two challenges each contributed 24 books) and definitely contributed to the overall quality of what I read:

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I rated 19 books five stars and a whopping 56 with four. And I felt like I was being a hard grader this year (I also had less patience for books I didn't like - I recorded four "not gonna finish" and 3 with only two stars). Overall, I listened to 51 books (less than half) and borrowed 36 (not even a third - I need to work on this, too).

Those 19 five star books were all so good, it's hard to pick favorites. But I think these 13 stand out.

And these two - An Altar in the World and Invisible Man - made it to my all-time favorites list.

I have high hopes for 2017, too. There's a third Read Harder Challenge - I'm excited about what I'm planning

shelved here

...except maybe for that first category about sports. In the spirit of "reading harder" I'm not going to re-read The Art of Fielding or Last Days of Summer. Sara suggested something nonfiction about the Olympics. Other suggestions? I'm open!

Thinking more broadly about 2017, I have a number of unread books hanging around my audible, kindle and real life bookshelves. Those were all books I bought intending to read; and next year, I will (at least make a dent in the pile 😉)! I'm definitely planning another Summer Bingo (more to come on that - not sure if we'll be able to use the Books on the Nightstand card generator) and I challenge myself to read from my shelves then. But y'all know it's hard - buying books is one of my favorite things to do (along with buying yarn - topic for another post, but I intend to take a similar approach with my stash next year).

I started working through the list ... and came up with 55 titles (Read Harder is 23 of them, so 32 more) I'd like to read next year. There are a couple that I plan to buy, but most I either own or will borrow (my library is getting on board with Overdrive in a big way now, so borrowing is a lot easier). Rather than set a goal for how many books I read next year, I'm thinking more about what I read and from where. I've used Goodreads exclusively to track my reading since I joined (back in 2007?) but I'm going to start also using a spreadsheet too (like this one). I'm only setting two goals for next year:

Non-fiction - 30%
Borrow - 50%

I'm curious to see what genres, genders and nationalities I read. I'll bet it's not nearly as diverse as I would like. And given how much I read, I'd like to change that. ...more to come.

Whew - I didn't set out to write such a long post, but I really wanted to get everything in one place so it would be easy (for me!) to check in next year. If you did read this far, thank you for sticking with me! And I'd love to know - are you setting reading goal(s) for yourself next year? if so, what?