Tag: book-blog

January Reading Plan

Each month I’m going to be prioritizing the series that I have already started. I will also be evaluating some potential new series to get started on.

The series that I am planning to  continue in January are:

Valor by John Gwynne (Faithful & Fallen #2)

Ruin by John Gwynne (Faithful & Fallen #3)

Booked on Murder by Allison Brook (Haunted Library #8)

The Stranger in the Library by Eva Gates (Lighthouse Library #11)

Christmas Cake Murder by Joanne Fluke (Hannah Swensen #23)

Chocolate Cream Pie Murder by Joanne Fluke (Hannah Swensen #24)

Coconut Layer Cake Murder by Joanne Fluke (Hannah Swensen #25)

The Girl and the Mountain by Mark Lawrence (Book of the Ice #2)

In January, I will be embarking on a new project to try new series.

Each month I will be trying the first 40 pages of the first book in series that I have not yet started. Essentially, I want to see if I am interested in the writing before I add yet another series to my TBR. I have made little index cards which each of these on them and I am drawing 3-4 randomly each month. For January I drew:

The Combat Codes by Alexander Darwin

A Gathering of Ravens by Scott Oden

The Ninth Rain by Jen Williams

If I finish all of these, I will have some stretch books each month. These are titles that I intend to read this year but which are not assigned to a particular monthly reading plan yet.

January Stretch Books:

Warbreaker by Brandon Sanderson

A Killing Cold by Kate Alice Marshall

Weyward by Emilia Hart

Cheers to a New Year of Reading

2025 has finally come around and I’m starting the year off in my usual reflective mood.

So, to the elephant in the room, did I achieve the 10 goals that I set for myself?

Nope.

But I’ve got to say, I had a really nice reading year. I read 69 books for a total of 27,424 pages. 13 of those books were 5-star reads for me. That means almost 20% of my reads were 5-stars.

Looking at each particular goal, I did make some good progress on some of them.

  1. Read a little every day- I definitely went through some slumps this year, but I would say that I read more days than not.
  2. Finish 2 series per month- I finished several series and made progress on several others, but I definitely fell short of finishing 12 series. I finished 5 series last year.
  3. Get NetGalley percentage to 80%. Essentially no progress on this one. I’ll be revisiting it in 2025.
  4. Determine an ideal TBR and stick to it. I got started on this, but in the second quarter of the year, life got a little hectic and the numbers got away from me. I do anticipate that this will be a year of decluttering some of my books. I have half a mind to turn that into a full-scale project.
  5. Read at least 100 books. I read 69 books on 2025. I started strong in January, but the Summer months really dragged down my numbers. I overextended myself and work has been a little crazy this past year. I have no idea why…and it could certainly be idealism…but I feel like this year is going to be better in that regard.
  6. Read more graphic novels. I haven’t crunched the numbers yet, but I am pretty sure I read fewer graphic novels in 2024 than I did in 2023.
  7. Read more short stories. Epic fail on this. I could not even make it through one short story collection. I may let this one lie since I do not want to force myself to engage with a format that does not hold my interest. The month where I tried to get the short story collection in was the month that started my reading slump. Coincidence?
  8. Join a book club that I don’t run. I did not achieve this one in 2024, but I have a line on an in-person book club that seems interesting near me.
  9. Make a book club kit for 1 book per month. I still love the idea of book club kits, but I didn’t get it off the ground last year.
  10. Read 15% of physical TBR. I may need to re-evaluate this one. Working in a library means that I will often be reading library books instead of my physical TBR. That wouldn’t be so much of a problem if I didn’t have so many full bookshelves in my apartment. This will be something to address in my 2025 reading plans.