2021 Reading Resolutions!

January 10, 2021January 10, 2021 by Nicole Sweeney ♥ 8 Comments

2020 was a really great month and I read some really fabulous books! I really enjoyed setting myself some goals at the start of 2020 (although I didn’t hit all those goals, you can see how I got on here!) I thought it would be fun to make new goals for 2021!

1. Read 120 books
I managed to read 152 books last year and that was the most I’ve ever read in a year. I think this was pretty much due to the pandemic so I’m sticking with 120 books and if I manage to hit around 150 books again that’s great, but I’m not pressuring myself to get there.

2. Read more of my owned TBR
I own a lot of books I haven’t read yet. I’m not sure of the exact number but if it hasn’t hit 1000 books it’s nearing it. I have had a bit of an unhaul and I will continue to do that in 2021 but I’m going to try and buy less books and read the ones that have been sitting on my shelf for the longest time.

3. Improve my Netgalley Ratio
This is back from last year because sadly I only managed to improve my ratio by 8% in 2020. I’m going to work hard on getting this near to that magical 80% and fingers crossed there will be a bigger improve by the time I get round to doing the results.

4. Read more big fantasy books
There are so many of this big fantasy series on my TBR, books like The Stormlight Archives, The Farseer Trilogy and The Kingkiller Chronicles that have been on my shelves for a long time and I’m always really excited about reading them. I’d love to make these more of a priority in 2021.

5. Read more books by favourite authors
Like I’ve said previously I buy a lot of books so I often find books by my favourite authors end up further down the pile and I don’t get to them – I still haven’t read Vengeful by V. E. Schwab or King of Scars by Leigh Bardugo. I’d love to make it a goal to read more of those unread titles from my favourite authors.

6. Make monthly TBRs and prioritise ARCS first
I am pretty bad for drifting away from TBRs to read whatever I fancy so I’m making it a goal this year to make monthly TBRs and read the review copies first before I dive into anything else. Hopefully this will make sure they’re reviewed on time!

7. Read 50 pages a day
I’ve started using a reading tracker on Instagram and I find generally I read lots at the weekend and very little or somethings nothing during the week. I’m hoping by tracking my page count I can push myself to read 50 pages per day. I’ve been loving this so far and have been exceeding that every day which is great!

So those are my bookish resolutions for 2021! If you’re planning to set any goals I’d love to know what they are!

2019 Reading Resolutions!

January 20, 2019January 19, 2019 by Nicole Sweeney ♥ 4 Comments

Hi everyone! I’m back today with some goals and resolutions for 2019. I hadn’t planned to make a post about this but I thought it would be fun to write it and look back on it at the end of the year and see if I managed to complete the goals. So let’s dive in!

1. Read 150 books

I know a lot of people don’t like to set a high Goodreads goal because it puts too much pressure on them but I personally find it quite helpful to keep my reading on track. In 2016 my goal was 60 and I read 65, 2017 I upped it to 75 and read 88 and last year I set it at 100 and then upped it to 140. I ended on 142 so I’m hoping that reading an extra 8 books won’t be too much of a challenge in 2019 and I might even surpass that.

2. Catalogue my TBR and try and make it smaller

My house is drowning in books. I have no idea how many of them are unread but it’s probably a very large number. I want to take a few days and make a list of all the unread ones and hopefully that number will be smaller by the end of the year. I might even make a page with them all list so I can keep track and keep it updated with the ones I’ve ticked off.

3. Get better at scheduling posts

I usually start off quite well in January and post every other day and then life gets hectic and I forget to post for a week or so. I’d love to get better at scheduling content in advance so I’m most consistent in posting. I also want to get better at posting more consistently on Instagram because I’m honestly terrible at that too.

4. Get NetGalley to 80%

I don’t read an awful lot of digital copies but I do have quite a few on my NetGalley shelf. My feedback ratio is currently at 51% and I would love to get that up to the recommended 80% but that might just be a dream at this point.

5. Read more outside my comfort zone

Last year I made a concerted effort to read more contemporary books because it isn’t something I normally read. I really enjoyed this and found some books I really love. I’m not going to pick a particular genre this time around but I’d like to read a mixture of things so that my 2019 reads aren’t just 150 adult and ya fantasy books.

6. Participate in more readathons

I sort of discovered readathons for the first time in 2018 and it’s definitely something I want to do more of. I find it really helpful to challenge myself with readathons and it’s a great way to interact with other members of the bookish community.

So those are my bookish resolutions for 2019! What are you hoping to achieve in 2019? Let me know!

2018 Wrap Up!

January 2, 2019 by Nicole Sweeney ♥ 5 Comments

Now that January is here and I’ve finally managed to pick my favourite books of 2018. You can check that post out here, if you want to know what made the top fifteen. After deciding I thought it would be fun to do a little wrap up just to look at my reading over the last twelve months.

So in 2018 I read 142 books.

One of my reading goals for this year was to read more books. In 2017 I read 91 books so I was hoping to up it to 100. I’m so pleased I managed to completely blitz this challenge and read way more than I expected.

Breaking down what I read:

Review copy/ARC: 66
Backlist: 20
Newly Purchased: 37
Re-read: 19
I’m not particularly surprised about this as I tend to reach more for review copies and the titles I’ve most recently bought. I’m definitely going to aim in 2019 to read more of the backlist books on my shelves. (We’ll see how that goes!)

In terms of genre I read:

Non-Fiction: 3
Graphic Novels: 4
Poetry: 1
Science Fiction: 14
Crime/Thriller: 13
Classics: 7
Historical Fiction: 10
Contemporary: 19
Horror: 10
Fantasy: 61

There’s no surprises that fantasy was by far the most popular. I did plan to read more contemporary books in 2018 so I’m pleased by the 19 on the list and that’s definitely something I want to continue in the new year.

My average length of book was 345 pages with the shortest book being Warm Up by V. E. Schwab (15 pages) and the longest Harry Potter and the Order of the Phoenix (744 pages).

My average rating was 4.0, which definitely shows how many amazing books I’ve read this year that the average rating is so high.

2018 was a brilliant year for books and I’m so excited to read and review more brilliant stories in 2019!

The Bibliophile Chronicles

Tag: reading goals