2019 Goodreads Goal

My Top 5 Reads of 2020

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It’s that time of year! Taking a look back over all I’ve read in 2019, a few books jump out at me. I’ll get to the list in a minute, but first I want to congratulate myself on reading all I did. While I didn’t meet my GoodReads goal—set at 60 books this year—I did finish 48 books! Plus, I read my own books a bunch of times while writing and editing them, so all in all, I did a great job with reading (can I add the books I wrote to my favourites???).

No matter how much I read, I always want to read more! While I want to set my reading target high for 2020, in the hope that I will find time to read more books, I’m going to set it reasonable, since I know 2020 will be busy.

But now, out of those 48 books, what were my top five?

  1. Legendary by Stephanie Garber (yes I liked book 2 better than book 3)
  2. Finale by Stephanie Garber (but book 3 was still fantastic)
  3. The Priory of the Orange Tree by Samantha Shannon (a great stand alone epic)
  4. The Wicked King by Holly Black (I always love Holly Black, can’t wait to get to Queen of Nothing!)
  5. Big Magic: Creative Living Beyond Fear by Elizabeth Gilbert (I know it isn’t YA, but I was super into non-fiction in 2019, so one of those books was bound to make the list!)

Of course, there were plenty of books released in 2019 that I just haven’t got around to reading yet (not to mention in 2018), so there might be some books that should be on this list but I just haven’t got to reading yet. My TBR pile is out of control, so as per usual, my new years goal is to not buy any more books and focus on reading more of the books I already have (this resolution tends to never last long—hopefully this year it will stick as I’m getting back into using my library).

What were your favourite reads of 2019?

JEH

A Reader’s 2019 Goals

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On the way into my day job this morning, I was listening to the radio. One of the DJ’s was talking about some research that said we shouldn’t make New Year’s Resolutions, but make a reverse bucket list, in other words, we should write down all the things we’ve already done that we’re most proud of, and this will help us see where our interests lie, and maybe also give us confidence to tackle new, or future, bucket list items (at least that is what I think the point was anyway). I usually set my new goals in September, since this feels more natural after twenty some years of school. But one goal I do set in January is my reading goal (thanks to GoodReads and their fabulous tracking app).

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First Book to Read in 2019, will be followed by 59 more!

When I wrote my reverse bucket list, I was surprised to feel disappointment that I couldn’t add any big reads to my list. In 2018 I started Don Quixote with the goal of finishing it, but I didn’t get it done. I also, year ago, started War and Peace and read half of it before falling off the train. I really do want to read these books (and finish them!), and writing my reverse bucket list helped me find what was missing. So, in 2019, my goal is to finish Don Quixote as part of my reading goal.

In 2018, I managed to finish 62 books, so I set my 2019 goal at 60. In 2018, my goal was only 50 books because I wanted to get more writing done, but I couldn’t stop reading, so this year I increased my goal back up to 60 books. As I’m over half done Don Quixote, I don’t think having such a large book on my list will slow me down much, and a lot of the other books I want to read this year are rather slender.

So, here’s to another happy year of reading. Did you set a goal? How many books do you want to read in 2019?

JEH