Happy Monday folks! I debated over whether or not to do a reading goals/resolutions post since I seem to never accomplish my always overly ambitious goals. I am a mood reader and get easily sidetracked. I see shiny new releases or interesting books in my local bookstores and thrift stores and all plans are blown to smithereens. That is also why I do not even attempt a clear and planned out TBR list anymore.
I am doing things a little differently this year. My goals are going to be much more flexible, allowing me to pick up books that I find interesting in the moment instead of trying to predict what I will want to read a month from now. I have three reading goals that I am very excited about that will hopefully be easy for me to achieve by the end of the year.
My first goal is to read more international authors and translated works. I like to think that I am an open minded and diverse reader, but that can't be really true if all I read are authors who are living in a culture that is very similar to my own. This plays really well into an interest that has been recently sparked in my immediate family. Many of us just recently had our DNA profiles done via Ancestry.com with some very surprising results. Being African American I knew that it would be likely that my ancestors would have come from the Ivory Coast or at least very near it. This was true, but it was nice to see the regional breakdown with approximate percentages. I also had a significant percentage of some European ancestry. Finding the European ancestry is interesting and not necessarily surprising giving the fact that my family is very southern and the history of the American south. Yet, it is also sad to find. I have a good idea how that ancestry got there and more than likely it was not some great love story in my family history. It would be wonderful if that were true, but it is highly unlikely. I haven't finished researching the books that will correspond with my results yet, but when I am done I plan on doing a post.
My second goal is to read more short stories. If you have followed my reviews for a while you know that I am a greedy reader. If I enjoy a story I want as much of it as possible. With short stories that I enjoy, no matter how much I like them, I am usually left wanting more. That is a flaw that I have as a reader that I would like to train out. I know, without a doubt, that I am missing out on so much by not picking up more short stories. I am determined to train myself to be satisfied with stories being told in shorter formats.
My third and final reading goal is one that I have borrowed from some BookTubers that I follow. There are many people choosing to do 'year of' challenges for authors that they have wanted to explore more deeply but haven't yet. I love this idea since there are so many authors that I keep adding to my lists, but never get around to diving into. For my blog it's going to be The Year of Ernest Gaines. I can't even tell you how excited I am to do this challenge for myself. I have wanted to read all of Gaines works for a while, but I just never did. By giving myself a whole year to work through his work, it feels very doable. My Year of Ernest Gaines post will go up soon as well.
And that's it! A completely reasonable set of reading goals for 2017. Having these simple and loose goals leaves me with plenty of opportunity to read across genres and for spontaneity. I can't imagine feeling stressed or trapped by these guidelines. I am very much looking forward to my readings this year. What about you all? Are you doing a formal set of reading goals/resolutions, or are you doing a free for all reading year? If you have a set of goals that you've put up let me know in the comments so that I can go check them out. I'm wishing you all a great year of reading!
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