TTT #230 ~ Bookish Goals for 2024

Top Ten Tuesday is an original feature/weekly meme created by The Broke and the Bookish in June of 2010 and was moved to That Artsy Reader Girl in January of 2018. It was born of a love of lists, a love of books, and a desire to bring bookish friends together

Happy Tuesday y’all! This week’s topic is “Bookish Goals for 2024.” If you’ve been following the blog for any length of time, you know I always post a New Year’s Resolutions….BUT not this year. Y’all, my goal is to just survive 2024 😅 I don’t know what happened last year, but 2023 kicked my tail. So for the first time since 2015, I have no new year’s resolutions, and I’m ok with that. That being said, I do have some bookish goals I’ve set for myself this year. I did it last year, and while I failed to meet a few of them, I did complete a majority of them. Here are the ones I’m setting for myself this year, in no particular order.

Read 100 books in 2023.

When I started tracking my reading at the end of 2013, I was averaging between 150-200 books per year. Now I’m lucky to read 100 books in a year (I managed 89 last year). I thought it was because I read a lot slower now, and a lot of what I do read is class material for Liam since we started homeschooling. I also read a lot of books with him that I never count on Goodreads, which I’ve created a new shelf and will be tracking those readalouds this year 😉 But y’all….I started tracking my pages read last year through the Bookly app, and I found out I’m actually averaging the same number of pages, even if the book count is less. So I’m just reading bigger books 😂

Make at least half my reads in 2024 from my TBR shelves (physical, Kindle, or Goodreads). 

I had this same goal the last few years, and I have to say, I did a good job of keeping up with it. I read 89 books in 2023, and only 24 of those were new releases. The rest came from my TBR pile or old ARCs. I’m slowly culling my Goodreads TBR with the Down the TBR Hole meme making it more manageable and less overwhelming. I hope to continue that trend this year.

Listen to one audiobook a week.

This was my goal last year too, and I managed to listen to 44 audiobooks. So not quite one a week but that’s a big jump from previous years. I’ve learned that if I’m struggling to focus on what I’m reading (which seems to be 99.9% of the time these days), if I switch to the audiobook edition, I wind up enjoying the read. That said, I’ve already listened to two audiobooks this year, and I’m currently on my third. Go me! 🥳

Read, on average, 2 hours per day or 60 hours per month.

I have an unhealthy obsession with the Bookly app y’all. I love seeing those pretty pie graphs and charts. It also motivates me to read. Looking at 2023, I read a total of 632 hours, which averages to 1.7 hours per day. SO I almost met this goal last year. Pretty sure our vacation week and the week of COVID after foiled this goal 😅

Raise my NetGalley percentage to 80%

This has been an ongoing goal of mine for a few years now. 2015 was a hard year personally, and that is when my NetGalley & ARC reads fell behind. I did a decent job of working to catch up in 2022, even though my percentage didn’t go up, and since my reading year wasn’t the best in 2023, it fell even more 🫣 To raise my percentage this year, I’m going to read all current releases before their release date and work on my backlist. I need to read at least 71 books from my NetGalley list currently plus any new ones I receive to reach 80% this year. If I don’t reach 80%, that’s ok. I’d just like to see my percentage go in the right direction for a change.

DNF books I’m not enjoying.

I used to be the world’s worst at DNFing books. I felt like if I’ve been given a book for review, a gift, or book I purchased that I should push through it and finish it. Y’all, there are too many books out there to waste your time on bad books. With that in mind in 2023, I adopted a new policy for myself and for the site: If I cannot honestly give a book 3 or more stars OR if I would not recommend the book on this site or gift it to a fellow reader, I will abandon the book. To be honest, this has been a big weight off my shoulders. I’m only one person, and I will never be able to read all the books sent to me in their entirety especially if I force myself to read books I do not enjoy. Last year, I DNF’ed more books than I ever have before, some of those books I read 100 or more pages of before making the decision to drop it. I took that responsibility seriously, especially for ARCs. But it has definitely made my reading life more enjoyable.

Write reviews as I finish the books.

This one is so hard to stick to! I inevitably fall behind. 2023 sucked for reviews from me. I might have been reading, but I wasn’t reviewing. I did however do a good job of making notes so I could write backlogged reviews if I wanted to. The only ones I will write are those that were ARCs, which I currently have 25 to do 🫣 Hopefully, this goal will keep me motivated to stay the course.

Pick 1 Audiobook Book, 1 E-Book or Physical Book, and 1 NetGalley ARC a week to read and either complete them or release them.

This resolution came from Kai @ Fiction State of Mind. She shared her resolutions in our #COYER Challenge Facebook group last year, and I loved this one. I did it in 2023, and I’m looking forward to continuing it this year. I did alter it slightly from hers to fit my own needs. My TBR is huge, being able to knock out three a week would go a long way in helping me reach my other goals.

Your Turn! What are your reading resolutions this year? Share below

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