2021 Reading and Blogging Goals

2020 was a hellish year filled with anxiety, uncertainty and so much loss. I'm so glad it's done and over with. While 2021 won't magically make everything better it as least brings with it some new hope for the future.

With the world falling apart reading and blogging wasn't the biggest priority, but let's see how I did:

Read 40 books: Success. I read 75 books with a total of 22 271 pages.

Read 20 books I already own: Partial success. 15 of the books I read were books I already owned. 75% is pretty good, so I'm happy with that.

Buy fewer books and read within 2 months: Success. I was shocked to discover that I only purchased 14 books during 2020. And I read 8 of those shortly after buying them.

Do quick reviews: Fail. I didn't implement this at all. Will have to try again this year    

Overall, I'm pretty happy with what I managed to achieve, especially taken the circumstances into consideration.

2021 Goals

For 2021 I think I'll keep my goals largely the same. We don't know what the year will bring and I don't need anything more stressful on my plate.

Read a total of 45 books:
I'm upping this slightly since I exceeded my goal of 40 books by a very large margin. Even without a lockdown period 45 books seem manageable.

Read at least 20 books I already own:
This worked very well last year and I think this might have to become a standard goal. Chipping away at Mount TBR one small chunk at a time.

Buy fewer books & read books within 12 months of buying them:
I want to stay more conscious of my book buying habits. Book prices have skyrocketed in South Africa with paperbacks costing what hardcovers used to be. If there are any good sales on I'm allowed to go a little crazy, otherwise I'll have to be very selective with my purchases. I'm extending the deadline to read new purchases to 12 months. If I can buy books and read them within the same year of purchase that means Mount TBR won't continue to grow.

Start doing quick reviews:
I tend to put off reviewing books unless they are review copies I received from publishers. In order to be able to do more reviews and actually review more backlist titles from my own shelves I'm going to try to start doing quick reviews. These reviews will be short, 2 paragraphs or less, and should be easier to write and post. Basically wrap-ups of books I didn't do full reviews for.

Here's hoping that 2021 is better. Just better in every sense of the word.

We can do this!