Reading Plans or Ideas for 2023

A new year always comes with new resolutions, new goals, new challenges, which for the most part are great if you’re someone who likes to push yourself year on year. There are times when I am that person but if there is something I’ve learnt over the past couple of years, it is also okay if you’re not physically or mentally ready for new goals and challenges.

In regards to reading, blogging, and keeping the ever-growing TBR under control, I know I’m not, so rather than look forward, I want to look back at past goals/challenges and follow them through into 2023. There may be some newish ones, but for the most part, they’ll be regular ones you may or may not have heard me mention before.

1. Goodreads/StoryGraph Reading Challenge – 25-30 books.

Gone are the days where I could set it at 70+ books and find that an easy challenge to reach. Nowadays, that is impossible, so I set this goal relatively low. I haven’t quite decided yet whether I will set it to 25 or 30, but that is the benchmark.

2. Read across my shelves, book by book.

I’m normally a mood reader so often I would just pick up whatever book from my shelves I fancy reading, but recently I’ve not been able to distinguish what that is, so I’ve not actually been reading. To combat this, what I’ve decided to do is pick up the first book on my shelves (The Atlas Six by Olivie Blake) and simply work across it, book by book. And because of the way my shelves are organised, it means I’ll hopefully and finally read certain books I’ve been putting off for ages such as The Secret Commonwealth by Philip Pullman and The Mask Falling by Samantha Shannon.

3. Aside from pre-orders already ordered, all new/backlist books I want will be put in a wish list to be saved for birthdays, NYALF, YALC, and Christmas.

I went by this book buying rule between 2018 and 2020 and it did work, mainly as all these events were a few months apart from each other, and it reminded me that having a new book straight away was not the be all and end all. As a child, I always had to wait for a new book and it made getting that book all the more special and exciting. I lost and forgot all that on discovering the online book community, and now is the time to reclaim it again. It’s also just being sensible with my income, not overfilling my shelves with books I’ll ultimately lose interest in, and controlling the TBR, which are all necessary tasks.

4. Start trusting my own fictional interests and tastes again.

Being a part of the online book community is great, albeit a rather small one, but a problem I’ve uncovered over the last few years is that I can get swept up in what everyone else is reading and those books are not really to my taste. Along the way, I forget what my tastes are, or I pigeonhole myself into only reading those few books because I don’t want to feel left out of the discussions. But that isn’t what reading is supposed to be. It is personal, it’s subjective, and it constantly adapts to our lives and changing circumstances. I read for me, and my preferences need to align with that. I’m not saying I won’t take away recommendations anymore, but just think about them a bit more before ultimately wasting money on a book I actually have no interest in reading.

5. Write and blog because I WANT to.

Yes, a lot of people say to get the blog stats and activity you want, you need to be regular and consistent, but ultimately life is never regular and consistent, and mine is very much up and down. I’ve had times during 2022 when I’ve felt the need to blog because I hadn’t posted for months, but haven’t really wanted to and as I only do this for fun, that is okay. I would like to get into a routine again, but I’m not going to force it if my brain is stuck and there’s nothing I want to talk about. At the end of the day, I do have quite a few creative hobbies which take up a lot of time and the amount of free time I do have will probably go down again, thanks to a new job I’ll be starting in a few days.

---

There we have it. Some reading plans and ideas I have for 2023. As they’re not set in stone, if things change that’s fine. If I stick to these, that’s also fine. There’s no pressure that way, although it would be nice if I can stick to my book buying rules.

Anyway, I’m rambling.

What are some of your reading goals or plans for 2023?

As always, thanks for reading and have a brazzle dazzle day!
xx