2016 Reading Resolution Review and 2017 Reading Resolutions

I love January as there’s loads of bookish posts! So far I’ve had my Top Books of 2016, Book Riot Read Harder Reading Challenge 2016 Review, 2016 Reading Stats (lots of graphs and nerdy maths!) as well as my review for the amazing Homegoing by Yaa Gyasi. I still have a few more posted planned and this post is to go through my 2016 Reading Resolutions to see how I got on and to put down some new resolutions for this year.

2016 Resolutions Review

1. Do the Book Riot Read Harder Challenge

This I successfully completed! You can read my wrap up post here where I list out all the books I read for the challenge and my overall thoughts on it.

2. Reduce the Amount of Books I Own

This one wasn’t a great success. Partly because I won some books and partly because I read so many NetGalley books.

3. Read 90 Books

This I completed, I read 129 books. But a lot of these were graphic novels and single short stories. Though even discounting those books I still managed to read 90 books, which surprised me as I thought it would be under 90 so I’m pleased with that.

4. Read more Irish Authors

Yes I did this! I did my all Irish March again (well, minus one book this year towards the end of the month), but while in 2014 I read all Irish authors I hadn’t read before, this year I read a mix of new and favourites. And I continued to read more Irish authors during the year, including reading Donal Ryan for the first time when I read the excellent All We Should Know.

 

So my goals last year were small and realistic enough. And this year they will be similiar.

2017 Reading Resolutions

1. Read 52 Books

So I lowered my goal this year to 52, a book a week. And seeing as I plan to continue reading graphic novels this will be an achievable goal. I lowered it though because I wanted to concentrate more on quality and not quantity. Not that I think I was trying to achieve that last year but I do think the higher goal made me shy away from larger books and books I’d read at a slower rate.

2. Read more non-fiction

Now this is going to be a tricky one in one sense. I already read non-fiction so it’s not much of a challenge but I read less non-fiction last year and I think it’s partly to do with the larger reading goal on Goodreads. I tend to read non-fiction at a slower rate and I think I shied away because it takes me longer to read non-fiction. But I’m not going to force myself to read non-fiction or make it a target I have to meet. I just want to be less hesitant to pick up non-fiction.

3. Lessen the amount of books I own

I need to try pick books off my shelf more often, I have loads that look interesting and need to get excited by them again. Again I’m not going to put a target on it (I want to lower it by X amount or more books out than in) but it’s something I want to be more conscious about it.

4. Read more Irish authors

I’ve seen a lot of people online committing to a British Books Challenge for 2017 and I want to continue supporting local home talent and read Irish authors. I’m going to do an All Irish March again, I think I’ll try and concentrate on new authors for then as well if I can. I have a big list from last year that I didn’t get to try all of so I have plenty of talent and books to try.

5. Book Riot Read Harder 2017 Challenge, Pop Sugar 2017 Challenge and BookTubeAThon

I’ve decided to stick with the Book Riot Read Harder Challenge as my main challenge as I liked the format last year and enjoyed it. I might try and do the Pop Sugar one as well but instead of just one book per prompt I might try and use one boo for 2 or more prompts so I can get through the list faster. I plan on doing BooTubeAThon should it be on again (and I’m sure it will be).

So nothing that do or exciting to be honest but I’m happy with these goals for the year. I want to less pressures to have a high reading count and just enjoy my reading for the year.

Do you have any reading resolutions? Let me know in the comments below!

2015 Reading Stats and Resolutions Review and 2016 Reading Resolutions

I did a Reading Stats post last year which I really enjoyed, I liked seeing how my reading broke down. So I decided to redo it again this year, hopefully I have all my maths right!

Fiction to NonFiction Breakdown

I read more books this year, compared to last, but I also read more fiction books. I dropped my non-fiction reading from 35% of my reading to just under 30%. It’s still not bad but I don’t think I’d like it to drop down further than that for 2016.

Physical Books vs E-Books vs Audio Books

E-books actually DECREASED this year, which surprised me at first but then, considering I was working in a bookshop, it’s not that surprising after all! I’m happy about my increase in audio books, I doubled it compared to last year (4% to 8% of total books).

Female to Male Authors

I know a lot of people who try to read more female authors than male, but it just naturally happens for me! I’ve gone from 60% of my authors being female in 2014 to 65% being female in 2015.

Other fun stats

-29 books came from library (this includes physical, ebooks and audiobooks), a decrease from last year’s 33

-17 were NetGalley reviews! An increase from last year’s 14

-17 were my own books (and some were borrowed but I didn’t count them), which is an increase from last year’s 6, BUT I also bought more books/got them as advanced copies from work so I actually haven’t made a dent in my own books.

And now to look at last year’s Reading Resolutions!

1. Read To Kill a Mockingbird

Hurrah! I won’t have to put it on my 2016 list as I ACTUALLY read it!

2. Read more diversely

I stopped taking this into account. I can’t say I really succeeded and while I probably won’t try and keep track of this really, I am going to try pick up more books by diverse authors, especially ones already on my TBR.

3. Reduce the amount of books I own to read

Hahahahahaha, no. Seriously, didn’t happen, I increased the amount of books I own as mentioned aboved.

4. Read a Russian author

The Russians have scared me, they seem to intimidating so I wanted to tackle this. And I read Lolita by Vladimir Nabokov in November.

5. Listen to more audio books

I wanted to increase the amount of audiobooks I listened to to 6 for 2015 and considering I listened to 7, I think that’s a success!

6. Do a themed reading month

No, didn’t get around to doing that unfortunately. I did start the Fem-tellectual themed months but that site went a bit dead and as there was no real interest coming from there I stopped doing it half way through.

7. Do Popsugar Reading Challenge

When I had posted the challenge, I didn’t know it was from Popsugar until a few weeks later. Needless to say I completed the challenge! Just about. I have a post from a few days ago with my results.

Now usually I have a seperate post for my Reading Resolutions but I don’t really have any this year so I’m going to post them here

2016 Reading Resolutions

1. Do the Book Riot Read Harder Challenge

As much as I enjoyed the Popsugar Challenge, I want a change and I’m going to attempt this one by Book Riot, along with Beth from Plastic Rosaries. If you’re interested in doing the Popsugar one though, here’s the link to their 2016 challenge.

2. Reduce the amount of books I own

Yes, this crops up every year but my friend gave me a bookshelf as a present and once I have all my books out of boxes I’ll be able to browse them better. And this also stands for my ebooks (ones I’ve bought and NetGalley ones as well). I have books that I bought years ago and I’d like to start getting through them. Or donate them if I’m no longer interested.

3. Read 90 Books

I usually set my Goodreads challenge to 50 and up it as I go along in the year. I hit 86 this year so I’m setting it at 90 and seeing how I go from there.

4. Read more Irish authors

Loads of new or at least new to me Irish authors have appeared on the scene and I want to look into them, it’s great to support home grown talent. I might do another Irish reading month, in 2014 I only read Irish authors in month of March so thinking of doing something similar this year.

That’s it really, it might not seem like a lot but the Read Harder challenge has a few that will actually challenge me so it’ll be interesting to do that! I might try and read more from the Rory Gilmore Book Club.