I mostly bombed my 2020 goals so no use in revisiting them. Onward and upward.
- Read 100. Easy, hopefully.
- Read Black playwrights. This past summer I made a resolution to read a play by a Black playwright for every Shakespeare play I read–I was doing ok at first and then quickly realized that keeping it up at exactly a 1:1 ratio was going to be virtually impossible given a handful of other reading obligations I was juggling, so I let myself fall behind and resolved to eventually catch up when I finished with Shakespeare. Excited to dive back into this.
- Read at least one ARC every month. I’ve decided that in addition to whatever ARCs I pick up on a whim, I’m also going to use a random number generator to decide on at least one ARC I’m going to read each month and just choose the corresponding title from my Netgalley shelf. My feedback ratio is appalling and it’s time for drastic measures.
- Read more backlist. I know this is everyone’s resolution every year, but this year my heart is really in this one. I have so many titles on my shelves that I’m dying to read and even though I wrote a long list of new releases I’m anticipating this year, very few of those fall into a must-read category for me.
- Read the Complete Works of Christopher Marlowe. This is something I decided I wanted to do just the other day but I’m honestly SO excited about it and I’m very impatient for my copy to arrive. Don’t panic, this guy did not write nearly as much as Shakespeare, this isn’t going to take over my entire life.
- Don’t read the Women’s Prize longlist unless I am truly excited about every single title. Which does not seem likely. I’m looking forward to reading a handful off the longlist with my Women’s Prize pals, but 3 of my 8 worst books of 2020 being off the WP longlist was really a wakeup call for me. And I didn’t even manage to finish the damn longlist!
- Be a better blogger. I think it’s no secret that my head and my heart weren’t in blogging this year, and I think that was entirely down to the pandemic. But I’ve spent my morning catching up and reading your blog posts from the past several months (I still have a long way to go before I’m caught up) and it’s reminded me of how much I adore this community and how I really want to be a better participant.
What are your reading goals for the new year?
pace, amore, libri 
Be a better blogger is one of my goals too! I’m finally getting back into it after taking 7 months off and I’m feeling excited and motivated! ☺️
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I think it’s a great idea to allow yourself to be selective about prize lists. The desire to be a completist with a list is hard to overcome, but there’s no point pushing your way through books you aren’t enjoying, or actively dislike.
Despite my best efforts, I’ve been at 69% feedback on NetGalley pretty much all year. I actually think I’ll have better luck chipping away at the backlog if I find the books from the library and read them in print but give feedback to NetGalley!
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Same here re: the WP. I still want to love the prize but they’re making it increasingly difficult to do so, lol.
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My heart wasn’t in blogging as much this year either, and I read 50 books fewer than 2019 which is really depressing. It was a tough year in a billion little ways. Your goals all sound great and doable and I hope this is a much better reading and blogging year for you!
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Great achievable goals Rachel – the pandemic I think has affected us all in different ways do don’t be too hard on yourself. You know how I feel about your Marlowe project! My main goal is to get to the 746 into the 300s by the end of the year so that’s just over 50 books. 🤞
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I am also unlikely to read the whole Women’s Prize longlist this year unless it is surprisingly good!
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Definitely agree on the Women’s Prize list (if I think about the books I hated this year, most of them were from that list 😬). Good luck on your goals, especially the last one, I enjoyed all my notifications being from you these past few days!
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Yes, be gentle on yourself ! It’s actually my main resolution for 2021. As for my reading goals : read more Classics (French classics because I’m French and I fail miserably at that category), read more books from my TBR (I just un hauled 3 huge bags of books…), keep pen-pal readings and read the books of my favorite authors (I keep buying them …)
great to see that you will keep blogging !
as for the WP Prize, I will just follow you and pick a few out the list !
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I’ll be interested to hear your thoughts on Marlowe. I know very little about his work except that he always seems to be set up as a foil for Shakespeare. Here’s to excellent reading in 2021!
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Good luck with your goals!! Totally support your WP goal – last year was a total disappointment and uninspiring, but still looking forward to 2021’s longlist 👀
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A great list of goals! I’ll be interested to see your thoughts on Marlowe; I read a couple of his plays in college and really liked them, and his actual life was pretty fascinating too, if I remember correctly. And of course, I’m curious to see what the Women’s Prize will do this year, they’re definitely on rocky ground of late. I hope you’ll have an excellent reading year ahead!
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Oh, great goals! All very exciting.
I am with you on the Women’s Prize. I recently had a look at potentially longlisted books and it might be the year I will actually have read (oh look at me using fancy tenses) a few of the books but unless I am super excited about a book I will not be reading them. I am hopeful because Evaristo as a head of judges might mean more stylistically interesting books but wow, this year was GRIM.
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