Monday, January 2, 2012

bibliosue's 2012 Reading Resolutions

Happy New Year everyone!  I hope you all had a safe and wonderful holiday.  Christmas was spent quietly at home, and the last week of the year was an extremely busy blur at the office so I did not do anything for New Year's Eve except relax. 

So ... 2012 is upon us and I started thinking about what I want to accomplish with my reading and in turn with my blog.  As much as I love getting free books to review and though a small part of me wants to be an esteemed book critic (I can be delusional sometimes), I think that for 2012 I am going to move away from this.  I don't do a lot of formal reviewing but when I do it sometimes feels like I'm doing homework and that takes away some of my enjoyment of the reading experience.  I still plan on writing reviews, but it will be for books that I have selected and obtained on my own. 

Given the state of my to-read shelves I really should impose a book-buying embargo, but I know that just is not going to happen (I'm going up to Toronto next week and have a list of books to pick up when I'm there).  What I can commit to, though, is a concentrated effort to control my impulsive book purchases so that I can catch up on what I already own and only purchase books that I genuinely want to read right away.

I don't think I will set a goal for the number of books to read in 2012.  I read over 120 in each of the last two years and I think that is good enough for me.  I would like to pay attention to what I'm reading rather than how much I'm reading and again given the state of my to-read shelves this is a challenge to avoid wanting to rush through one book to get to the next one. 

Do you have any reading goals for the new year? 

6 comments:

  1. I am going to do a few challenges but no reading goals for me, as in number of books I want to read. I read about 180 or so this year and that is more than enough. I really don't aim to read more than that.

    120 is good for a hard-working person! You're right to concentrate more on your own books rather than reviews books (says she, reading 2 review books at the moment!). I'm much more choosy with review books these days and I put a limit on the amount per month. Full is full!

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  2. I really made an effort to stop accepting all sorts of books for review in the fall of last year, and I must admit, my reading experience has improved dramatically and has become MUCH more fun. For this year, I plan to accept an extremely minimal amount of books and just read what's on my shelves or read what I decide to buy for myself in the store and not because "oh goodness, I received this froma publisher and it's been months, must read/review ASAP." I don't want that pressure anymore.

    I want to be more consistent with my posting, make it more diverse and not just about reading, but ultimately, I just want to have more fun with it.

    Here's to another fun blogging year with you :)

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  3. Happy Reading 2012. Have fun in Toronto.

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  4. These goals are a lot like mine. I want to read what I want, and less of what I am expected to read. My reading for last year felt a tad uninspired, and I would love to just go with the flow and do what I want. I do have a few joint reads scheduled, but they are with great friends, and I am looking forward to them. Other than that, I am just going to let myself do and read what I want! Great resolutions for the new year! I hope you have a lot of success!

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  5. Your goals are very good and realistic ones! I think complete bans on book buying just makes one want to buy books more! I'm trying to only buy books that I will read right away--I have too many that I HAD TO BUY but have been sitting on the shelf for years. ;)

    Happy new year!!

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  6. I think many bloggers, especially after a year of review copies, realize that they'd rather not. I have had good experiences so far, but we'll see how many I accept in the new year. And I love the "no number of books read" goal. I am all about quality over quantity these days too.

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What do you think? Good or bad, I'd love to hear from you (but be nice - I'm sensitive!)