2021 Bookish Challenges & Goals

Hi and welcome to FromBelgiumWithBookLove where today I’d like to talk about my bookish challenges for this year!

I sort of made a list of bookish goals in my head early last year, but this year I decided to formalise it here, to help me reach my goals. I will be kind to myself, if 2021 is anything like 2020 life will be challenging enough without setting unrealistic goals for myself. Reading is supposed to be fun and I’d like it to stay that way! So I have not set myself up for failure, I don’t think, but set some challenges that should be doable and will allow me to stay focused on what I’d like to “accomplish” this year.

The GoodReads Challenge:
I set my challenge at 200 books, like I’ve done for the last two years.

The Series Challenge:
Continue and finish the Dark Iceland Series by Ragnar Jónasson (5 books to go). I’ve had most of the Dark Iceland Series on my TBR for ages, and I was gifted an ARC of Winterkill, the last instalment. I recently read the first book and I want to keep the momentum going.
Continue and finish the Arc of a Scythe trilogy by Neal Shusterman (2 books to go). I have the remaining two Arc of a Scythe books on Audible but somehow I keep forgetting about them, so now’s the time.
Continue the Shardlake Series (6 books to go). I won’t tell myself to finish it this year, they are big ass books and they get bigger by the book, but it would be nice to get through a few more by the end of the year.

The Stephen King Challenge:
Read at least 5 Stephen King novels. Watching IT Chapter Two the other day, I realised I miss vintage King, so the goal is to (re)read some of his (older) work, including IT, this year.

The Agatha Christie Challenge:
Read at least 5 Agatha Christie novels. I love Agatha, and as a teenager I read a whole bunch of Poirot and Miss Marple novels, but since then I don’t seem to get around to them. Hence the challenge.

The Spanish Challenge:
Read at least 10 Spanish books. I will try to read one each month, but I do have some longer ones on the TBR so I’m cutting myself some slack.

The Non-Fiction Challenge:
Read the 3 non-fiction books on my physical TBR and at least 1 from my digital TBR. I’m not a non-fiction reader, which is why I have only the three physical non-fiction books, and despite the fact that I really do want to read them, I keep pushing them back, which is just silly.

The Classics Challenge:
Read at least 4 classics / modern classics, including a Jane Austen and a Shakespeare. I discussed the Bard’s works at college, but I’ve never actually read any of it. I’ve been meaning to for ages but it scares me. By saying it here I’m forcing myself to just do it.

The FairyLoot Challenge:
Read at least 10 FairyLoot novels, at least 4 of which from 2019-2020. My FairyLoot novels are piling up and I think I need the extra nudge to pick them up a little faster. This is the only challenge with possible repercussions: if I don’t make it, or if I don’t enjoy it as much as I feel I should, I will be terminating my FairyLoot subscription.

Last year I was very careful about NetGalley requests and blog tours, and I hope to continue that, too many pending ARCs are overwhelming to me and I don’t want to put myself through that. I also hope to show some of the same self-restraint when it comes to buying books…

I also tweaked my spreadsheet a little, I want to keep more stats this year. I will be keeping track of where the novel is set, and when. I might do quarterly diagrams or something. I haven’t a mathematical bone in my body but I do like pie charts 😂

And that’s a wrap! Thanks for joining me today, wish me luck 😁

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