Bookish Resolutions for 2025

We are so close to the end of 2024 and the beginning of 2025. This year was a journey with plenty of unexpected moments and challenges. Throughout it all, reading was an escape for me. I truly embraced the mood reading mode and reached for a lot of books that were easy to fall into. While I've read over 130 books and counting in 2024, I was only moderately successful in fulfilling my bookish resolutions for the year. 

A fair amount of the resolutions for 2025 are going to be similar to the ones I had this past year. There were some goals I had that I still want to work on or finally address. There were also some that worked really well for me that I want to continue into the new year. 

Up first, I am continuing with not setting a numerical reading goal. In past years, setting a numerical reading goal such as 50 or 100 led me to a lot of stress when I would "fall behind" or not hit that number. In 2024, I read over 130 books. In terms of quantity, it's been one of my best reading years ever. So, instead of setting a numerical reading goal, I'm going to continue with my goal of reading often and prioritizing reading in my life. 

Secondly, I want to continue spending less on purchasing books. This year was a very good year for staying on top of my bookish budget, but I do still think I could do better. This ties into more specific financial goals for the year that I won't get into but the point stands. I only want to buy books I am excited about reading or have read previously and know I'll want a copy. 

My next goal ties into spending less on books. I've been utilizing the library digitally for a few years now and it has been amazing for many goals I have. This year, I want to use the library even more, specifically when it comes to physical books and utilizing their other services. Between Kindle Unlimited and my library cards, I want the majority of my reading to be done through those services or the books I *already* own.

I didn't tackle my backlist as much as I'd hoped in 2024 so I'm adding that to this list. I own a lot of books, both physical and digital. There's series I love that I haven't finished despite them being complete for years. There's books I've had on my TBR for almost a decade that I'm still really excited about. While I won't get through all of them this year, I want to dedicate a lot of time in 2025 to reading through the books I already own. 

In addition, I want to read more books that scare me. Now, I'm not talking about horror books here because I truly am a scaredy cat. More specifically, I'm talking about those epic fantasies or sci-fis that intimidate me with their world-building or complex plots...or the 800-1,000 page chunky books I've heard amazing things about but have been scared to begin. Basically, I want to read the books that I've put off for ages but have always wanted to get into. 

Lastly, a new goal I have is to make space for nonfiction. I want to read for learning, not just escapism. I used to learn through school but now that I'm no longer a student, I still have a thirst for knowledge. As an adult, I have to search out these things on my own. So I'm going to try to hold more space in my reading sphere for nonfiction books, though I am in no way expecting my nonfiction reading to surpass my fiction escapism. 

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Thanks for reading!

xoxo

Lauren

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Bookish Resolutions for 2024

Every year, I like to reflect on my reading year and look ahead to what I want to accomplish in the new year. Like usual, my list of resolutions is more like general guidelines for the most part. Most of these are goals I set for 2023 as well, so many of them are continuations of what I'm already working on. Let's go ahead and dive in! 

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For the last few years, I have not sent a numerical reading goal. I'm continuing that this year and just saying I want to read regularly and prioritize reading. I read 100 books in 2023 which is the most in years and I would love to do that again in 2024. But one of the biggest reading stressors I've had in the past is trying to hit that quota. In 2023, I gave in fully to my mood reading and tried to prioritize reading over other things like watching Netflix or playing games. It worked out well so I'm going to continue with that philosophy again. 

In terms of what I want to read, I want to get through more of my backlist TBR from previous years. There are books and series on my shelves that I've owned for years and I want to start making a dent in them. In that same vein, I want to complete Jane Washington's backlist of books I've not read yet, reread Percy Jackson, and start my reread of the Shadowhunter books. 

Like many, my physical space is limited, especially living in a big city. I like to declutter my books every so often to make room for new ones I'd rather have. This year, I want to declutter my bookshelves (both physical and digital) as well as just my general living space. I don't want to be overwhelmed by stuff and I think it's good to continually go through my belongings. This also extends to my Kindle books as there are a lot that I think I could just get rid of so that they don't clutter my app anymore. 

In that same line of thinking, I want to spend less money on books. I've been slowly spending less and less every year on books and I'm wanting to continue that in 2024. I'm proud of the progress I've made but I also know it's an uphill battle. One of the things that has worked well for me is putting £1 aside for every book I read and letting myself have a guilt-free book shop at the end of the year with however much I've saved from that. Instead of impulse-buying books throughout the year, I now put them on a wishlist for this end of the year haul. 

Lastly, this is not a reading goal but a bookish goal. I love writing and I feel that I've finally rediscovered the spark after a few years of writing feeling like pulling teeth. I have an idea that I'm incredibly in love with and excited about. I know if I put my mind to it and ignored everything else, I could finish it in just a couple months. But I want to enjoy the process and integrate it into my daily life rather than force through as fast as I can. So for this year, I want to finish the first draft. Ideally, I'd want to do more but I'm not going to set a specific goal for anything else just yet. 

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Thanks for reading!

xoxo

Lauren

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Bookish Resolutions for 2022

A new year is almost upon us and I am not quite sure what to feel. I was hopeful 2021 would be a better year than 2020 and it was...not. I don't want to get too excited or hopeful just to have an even shittier year. In terms of reading, I did not have the best reading year. While I achieved many of my goals on paper, I am entirely unsatisfied with how this reading year went. Because of this, some of my goals for the new year have changed or been adapted to fit my current state. Let's dive in! 

• Reading
• Read at least 1 book
• This is something that I did last year: setting my number goal to 1. It definitely helped me not stress as much about the quantity of books I read so I'm continuing to set my goal at 1. However, I would ideally like to read more books than I read this year (so at least 50 or so). I think this is entirely doable...and I'll explain in the next goal why.  
• Prioritize but don't force reading
• Last year, I made myself a promise not to force reading and I stuck to it. However, there are times when I was stressed or bored and I didn't make myself at least try reading before turning to other things. So this year, in an effort to read more, I am going to prioritize time for reading. This means I'll try reading first, but then if I truly am not feeling it I won't continue reading at that moment. I'm hopeful this will help me read more of my backlist TBR that has grown immensely this year.  
• Finish more series
• I truly thought 2021 was going to be a year of me finishing series. In 2020 alone I finished 17 series. However, I have only finished one so far in 2021 (with the smallest possibility of a second in the last week and a half coming up). This is really disappointing to me because many of my favorite series concluded in the last couple of years and I haven't finished them. That's why I'm hoping to finish a lot more series in the new year. 
• Social Media
• Hit 3,500 followers on bookstagram
• This is the same exact goal as for 2021. However, I fell off with it a while back and still haven't gotten back into it. It's also hard as I need to figure out a new way to take pictures in my new apartment with limited books. But I do want to finally hit this small goal. I think that once I hit this, I will feel a lot better about being back in the community. 
• Join BookTok
• I absolutely love scrolling through TikTok and BookTok. Since I've been struggling with bookstagram and have been considering TikTok for a while, I think I'm going to try dipping my toe in this year to see how I like it.
• Consistent blogging 
• I was pretty inconsistent with blogging this year and, since blogging is something that genuinely makes me very happy, I want to get back into it more in the new year. I've already become a bit more consistent in the past few weeks and I'm hoping that I'll be able to continue with this momentum into the new year. 
• Buy less books
• I have been a bit out of control the past couple of months when it comes to book buying, so a big goal for 2022 is to budget better and not buy as many books. This is partly to save money but also to push me to read more of my physical TBR. 

And those are my goals for 2022. I am being very easy on myself because life is hard right now (as I'm sure it is for most people). But there are still some things that I would like to accomplish in the new year and think that I can achieve if I put my mind to it. Are there any bookish goals you have for 2022? 

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Thanks for reading!

xoxo

Lauren

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Bookish Resolutions for 2020

The new year is upon us and I have a list of bookish-themed goals for the new year. I definitely like making goals periodically throughout the year, but today I'm going to be talking about a list of more general things that I hope to accomplish during 2020. A lot of these are things that I was working on in 2019, too, so I think that this list is entirely achievable. But, without further ado, here's my goals for 2020:

• Reading
• Read 100 books
• I read 138 books in 2019, so I think this should be achievable and in-line with previous years. I was thinking of making it 150 books and pushing myself, but I want to focus more on quality instead of quantity and I don't want to make myself hate reading. 
• Finish 10 book series
• I finished 9 series this past year and, as I have a lot of series on my TBR, I think that a goal of finishing 10 series is manageable. 
• Read more backlist TBR books
• My TBR is insane. I'm admitting it here first. I have way too many books that are unread so this is one of the bigger priorities for me. 
• Bookstagram
• Be more active
• I was very active in 2019 before I fell off a bit but I do want to get back to that level again. This includes posting regularly, responding to comments and DM's, and engaging more with other community members.
• Hit 3,500 followers
• I currently have 2,355 followers and, if I look at previous growth rates for each year, this is definitely doable, I think, as long as I can keep with my previous resolution to be more active. 
• Blog
• Average 3 posts a week
• This is something I'm bringing over from both 2018 and 2019. A consistent schedule is the one thing I've found that boosts my page views and engagement, so I'm going to continue with the goal of averaging three posts a week. 
• 70,000 new blog views 
• This is one of my more ambitious goals as well as I had ~58,000 views in 2019. It's a bit ambitious to add a higher goal, but I think that if I do a bit more promoting of my blog with my other social media channels and post regularly, it can be done. 
• Book Collection
• Buy less books
• This is a big one for me. I love buying books but there's a line between a healthy amount and irresponsible. I've fluctuated in the past year with book buying and I've definitely been more responsible the past few months. I want to keep the number of books I acquire low so that I can focus on my backlist TBR and saving money. 
• Unhaul over 100 books
• This should be easy for me. My collection currently stands at 760 which is a big number. I've already gone through and made a list of books I think I could get rid of and it's already over 100 books. However, now it's onto the task of actually getting them out of storage boxes and selling/donating them. That's the one part of this goal that will be difficult.
• Writing
• Continue working on my novel
• I've been working on multiple novels throughout my life and I've never finished one.  There's one, though, that always finds its way back to me. I'd ideally like to finish the first draft this year, but if I don't manage to achieve that with everything else I'm trying to do then as long as I make progress in it I'll be happy. 
• Work on short story craft 
• This is a new one for me. I like long works or short blog posts. However, most of my creative writing classes focus on short stories or excerpts of longer ones. Just once I'd like to write a short story and be somewhat happy with how it turned out and not want to make it longer or get rid of it completely.

So those are my bookish-related goals for 2020. I think this is definitely doable, but I may have to adjust them once I actually get back to school this semester and try to fit things it around everything else. 

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Thanks for reading!

xoxo

Lauren

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