Reading with Style discussion

I see it was this time last year when I started the 2024 Goals post. Maybe with the possible bucket list task, you've been thinking about things. Please post if you have an idea or two.

PS. I don't know if Joanna, Anika, et al use your ideas. I hope they do. Kate and I referred to your goals when making task decisions. We couldn't accommodate all of them, but listing your personal goals helped us create tasks for you.

1. Reduce number of onhand/unread books. My strategy for 2023 & 2024 gave me some success, though small. I'll take what I can get.

This year my goal is to acquire at least 1 fewer than I read the month before, but try for no more than 1 acquisition per week. Started the year with 523 on hand. Target: Under 500 end of year.

Read versus Acquired
Dec 7 versus Jan 5
Jan 8 versus Feb 4
Feb 7 versus Mar 6
Mar 6 versus Apr 5
Apr 8 versus May 6
May 6 versus June 6 :-(
Jun 8 versus Jul 10 :-(
Jul 8 versus Aug 7
Aug 9 versus Sep 7
Sep 9 versus Oct 4



2. Work on personal 19th Century challenge. Remember that I'm allowing short stories for this. Started the year with 52 years read.

3. Chip away at my WWI challenge. 5 a year including one nonfiction is the goal. [I neglected this in 2024, with only 2 novels, but I did get the nonfiction in. We'll see if my interest holds this year.]

4. Start the personal midcentury mysteries challenge. This is one for every year 30s-60s. These are my favorite years, it shouldn't take long. [I actually started this in December 2024, and have already ticked off 3 of the 40 years. So happy to be back tracking mystery years!]

>Update, Oct. 19/25:

My main goal for 2025 is to read: The Tale of Genji. This novel is 1120 pgs long (not including the maps/diagrams and appendices!). This will impact the rest of my goals in a big way.

>3/4 of the way through Genji! I WILL finish this.....

These are some additional 'blue sky thinking' goals:

1. read 110 books - >have read 118 books already this year

2. read at least 2 big fat books (optional to be a classic)

specifically hoping to fit in:
The Three Musketeers
V.

>sadly, this will not be happening.

4. Continue to work away at the series I am reading (currently 13, with one in the wings).

> I have continued this this! Yay!

5. read at least 1 non- fiction per quarter - > 2/4

6. Mysteries challenge! Continue to work on this.

>I am pretty sure I have worked on this, but need to update the spreadsheet

7. Continue to whittle down the RL TBR.

>even though progress is very slow(!), I am actually doing it

1.My bookcases at home are full, and I hope to read more of those books. (The summer challenge helped, but then I went to some book sales!)
2. Read some books for the Mystery Challenge.
3. Read some fictional books set during the Spanish Civil War and the aftermath. (I'm going to read George Orwell's Homage to Catalonia in 2025, and that sparked an interest in the subject.)
4. I have lots of single short stories, mostly classics, that have been recommended by GR friends that I would like to read. I'm also reading multiple stories by John Cheever and Franz Kafka in 2025.
5. I have been making it a yearly tradition since I read Dickens' A Christmas Carol in 2020 to include some winter holiday books in my reading. Sometimes it's just short stories, but I found some anthologies for the winter of 2024-25.
6. I will continue reading British Victorian literature, especially Dickens, and I always enjoy books set in France. This is balanced by the more contemporary books that I will continue to read in my library book groups, and Southern Lit on Goodreads.
7. Read some books written by Japanese authors--fiction and mysteries.
8. Jane Austen was born 250 years ago, and I signed up for some lectures or discussions where I'll need to read some of her novels.
9. I'm reading "War and Peace" in a Buddy Read, and am loving the book so far. The size of the book looks overwhelming, but it's very readable. I enjoy the background history about Napoleon, and am spending way too much time going down interesting rabbit holes!

Well, I am planning on reading less, by this month I didn’t want to read anymore, so I am going to try to read maybe 2/3 of what I did this year.

I am going to print a map of the world and focus on global reading. I read a lot of Japanese and Korean, going to spread my wings a bit more.

And that is it. I am just going to try and enjoy reading more.

My goal is to read what I want to read and not let all my challenges dictate to me. I love challenges, but in the beginning of my journey here on GR's I used them just to give me ideas of what to read. I want to go back to that. I was in a real slump during the summer and started picking up only comfort books. Finally, I hope out of that "meh" feeling and hoping 2025 is a better year for me.

I exceeded my book acquisition restrictions in both June and July. My excuse is that I was acquiring books for the Countries of the World challenge. But if I'm to make my <500 goal by year's end, I'll have to pay closer attention.