2019 Reading Goals

Happy 2019, everyone! This time last year I set myself three reading goals for 2018:

• Read more classics
• Read more non-fiction
• Discover new authors

Reflecting on these aims (find a little more detail about them here), I think I did hit them… mainly. I upped my non-fiction game; four of my standout books of the year were from this genre:

• Everything I Know About Love by Dolly Alderton
• How Not To Be A Boy by Robert Webb
• This Is Going To Hurt by Adam Kay
• My Thoughts Exactly by Lily Allen

I didn’t devour as many classics as I intended BUT I did develop a love for a classic author – Agatha Christie. More about her later…

My favourite new author discoveries were Sally Rooney and Jess Kidd. Rooney’s Normal People was just exquisite and as an author she has such a unique voice. Jess Kidd has two novels: Himself and The Hoarder (her 3rd book is being published this year) and I adored them both. She’s a pleasure to read.

I set myself 65 books in my goodreads challenge – and actually read 82 (!!!) I was not expecting that; Being on maternity leave had a lot to do with that final figure! As I’m back to work in a few days, I don’t think 2019’s total will be as high.

So, onto 2019…

All of my 2018 aims remain, they are still the things I would like to achieve from my reading this year and I will set a goodreads challenge figure BUT I’m going to put it at a (hopefully!) realistic 60 and see how I go. It’s always nice to set number goals, but I’m not going to stress about reading x amount per month.

I’ve also decided 2019 is the year of Agatha. I’m going to make a conscious effort to get through her epic back-catalogue by taking part in a digital Agatha Christie book club, hosted by Maidens of Murder on Instagram. It’s one Christie book per month that you discuss at the end of the month, so very manageable and I’m looking forward to it!

So that’s it! Do you set yourself reading goals for the year?