Booklist

Every year, I do the GoodReads reading challenge – setting myself a target of number of books to read, and then keeping track of it through GoodReads.  I usually blast through the target – for example 2023’s target was 100, and I ended up with 153 – but I’d rather aim low(ish) and succeed rather than shoot for the moon and fail.

It’s worth pointing out that there are lots of things I don’t like about GoodReads – their controversies this year about fake reviews and so on in particular – but for this kind of basic usage, they’re fine and I’m yet to find a similarly comprehensive setup to manage it. So… it’ll do.

I also rarely bother writing reviews etc. (unless it’s a particularly awful thing I’ve just read)

Anyway. This year I’ve decided that I’m going to try and reduce the number of new book purchases, and instead to carve through a decent swathe of my stuff that’s bought-but-still-unread. (Which is a huge pile, and I daren’t actually count how many things are in it)  I’m not going to say “I’m not going to buy any new books” – mainly because that would be a) ridiculous, and b) unachievable (plus I’d have already failed on that score) – but I’m going to try and reduce that count a bit and get through older stuff instead.

As a result, I’m setting my target this year to be 120 books. (It was originally 100, but I changed it up a bit) I know there are some I re-read that I can race through because they’re familiar, but I think if I make new ones the majority this year, that might slow me down a bit, so 120 is realistic. (Ish. I’ll almost certainly exceed it, but it’s a number I’m happy with)

Now it just remains to see how I do with it!