Bookish Questions – 2017 Reading Goals?
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What are your reading goals for 2017?
I read quite a few books last year. According to Goodreads, I read a total of 69 books in 2016, that’s 6 more books than in 2015. I would like to think that I could keep my goal from the last two years of reading one book per week, but with baby Spot due in April, I have a feeling that my reading time is going to all but disappear for a while. So this year, I’m giving myself an easy goal of 12 books – just one per month.
I’ve already finished 2 books this year, and am partially through 3 more, but I fully expect the number of books I am able to read each month to drop drastically once the baby comes. I’ll probably spend all of my spare time sleeping.
Do you set reading goals each year? What are they?
I won’t tell you what my total was…because if I do you won’t believe I’m not showing off. Have to remember I don’t sleep well, and I usually have 3-4 different books on the go at any one time. (You can always click on my stats on my profile, I think, if you really want to know).
I don’t set a goal in terms of number but I do want to try to read different things. I like detective stories but I’ve been reading too many of those. And I’m surprised how many books of all kinds I’ve read lately that can be shelved as “1920s-30s.” I need to stretch myself a bit, but sometimes I do and pick on something that doesn’t work for me, and back I go to mysteries and the Roaring Twenties!
Just now I’m reading “The Corpse Walker” by Liao Yiwu, about the people on the fringes of Chinese society: professional mourners, public restroom attendants, a man who was shut up in a leper colony because he was politically incorrect (did you know we got that phrase and concept from Mao?) and things like that. An eye-opening read! I had read Liao’s “God is Red” about clandestine Christians in China and really found it interesting, and this one (his first, banned in China) is just as absorbing.
BTW my pastor got his PET scan back and the results are excellent. They say there is a tiny nodule left but it might just be “leftovers” so the results go to the radiologist for a second opinion, but it has been a miracle from start to finish.
I’m glad to hear your pastor is doing so well. I hope his report from radiology comes back just as good. I just finished reading a book titled “A Small Fortune” by Rosie Dastgir. It’s not the type of book I normally read, but I ended up enjoying it. I sent you a recommendation for it on Goodreads so that you can see what it’s about.
I just realised no, you can’t see my stats. And since no one else seems to comment on your book-related posts, I guess I can tell you. I read 238 books in the past year. I don’t sleep much. And a handful of those are kids’ books, some are even picture books.
I would love to read that many books in a year, but I’ll take my ability to sleep over that number anytime. I always have to remind myself that it’s not the number of books or the amount of time I read, but the enjoyment I get from it.
Oh, yes!! Or what you learn! When I read certain things, even uncomfortable reads, something else I’ve read or seen on a documentary etc. will slot into place and then I think, “Oh, now it makes sense!” I read Frances Osborne’s book “The Bolter” this year, and understood a LOT more about the cultural subtext of Golden Age mysteries. All of those steamy glances at Shepheard’s or Raffles Hotel, and the colonel’s lady and Judy O’Grady, sexual intrigue in the colonies inducing murder and mayhem, etc.
Of late the books that stir up my sediment the most tend to be by Chinese authors, such as Liao Yiwu and Xinran. They are nonfiction but not done to “shock” or shore up Western sensibilities of “we’re the greatest” either. Quite eye-opening.
I have read a few memoirs about western people living in China for short periods of time and found them to be quite interesting, so I may have to look into those authors you mentioned.
I’ve just realised that one of the reasons I get through so many books in a year (apart from the fact that I don’t sleep and that I read like other people breathe) is that I don’t watch much TV at all. 90 min to 2 hrs is my max per day. I also don’t spend much time online, bar half an hour about twice a day. I just got a smartphone (needs must, my old Nokia is worn out) but I don’t want to be one of those people that’s glued to it 24/7. Besides looking at the screen for any length of time gives me a hellish headache. I have to take my thyroid meds in the morning and then wait 30 min before I eat breakfast, so that’s usually reading time…keeps me from forgetting and eating too soon. As my ebook has a time signature at the bottom of the screen I can keep track.
Just now I’m re-reading Shirley Conran’s “Lace” for relaxing time. Read it when it first came out in my early 20s and loved it. Now, I still enjoy it but for different reasons…Not the erotica (of which there is mercifully little) but the quality of her writing. I have to say I was a bit wary, as chicklit is no longer my thing.
Chick Lit has never been my thing, but on occasion, I find a beautifully written book that makes all the romance worth it for me.