Reading Goals for 2023

Happy New Year!!

I cannot believe it is 2023!

Last year, I did a really long post discussing all of my reading goals for 2022, and I thought I would do the same this year. I also thought I would take the time to go back over last years goals and see which ones I managed to achieve and which ones I did not.

I am still working on my 2022 Wrap Up post, but it is still clear that I did not have a very good reading year last year. If I’m being completely honest I think my reading slump had been brewing all of 2021. I didn’t read anything in May, and I feel like everything I read after May was forced. But, I really started to lose it around August and September. I just had a really strong end to 2020 and a strong start to 2021 that I could get away with not reading too much to reach my goal. That being said, I still had to lower my 2021 for a fighting chance to reach it. Which I still did not do.

All of that to say that I was in a reading slump from about August 2021 right through until December 2022. Although it was about September 2022 where I started to come out of it, but December was when I really felt that spark come back. That spark does seem to have continued into January – at time of writing this, we are a week into this year and I have already read 3 books. Before I fully dive into my goals for 2023, let’s check in with how I did with 2022.

2022 Reading Goal Wrap Up

• Read at least one book a month in a physical format (or e-book) – I did not manage this one. There were actually three months where I did not listen to an audiobook either. That being said, I did read 4 books in a physical format out of 27 total books, so I don’t think that is too bad of a statistic.
• Read 100 books – I think this goes without saying that I did not reach this… I even lowered my goal to 30 and did not reach that either. In total I read 27 books in 2022.
• Track my reading – this I did! I use Excel spreadsheets to track my reading and my writing and in 2022 I found it useful to keep track of my reading and writing this way and it is something I have already continued into 2023
• Read more newer books than rereading books – this is a goal I had in 2021 as well as 2022 and I smashed this one out of the water. I love rereading books, but in 2020 I think I reread too much and I reread more than I read new. So ever since I had tried to change that. In 2022 I read 19 new books and reread 8 – a statistic I am really proud of!
• Read more recent books – by this one I meant I wanted to read more books published in 2022 than any other year, and I did that too! I read 8 books published in 2022. I will attach a screenshot of my spreadsheet at the bottom of this section, so if you want to see all of my other statistics, you can!
• Read books that have been on my TBR for far too long – I didn’t do very well with this one and in fact I think I read a total of 1 book out of the 23 books I listed that I wanted to read. Just more books that have rolled over to this year!

2023 Reading Goals

• Read more books than last year – at the moment I have a tentative goal of 52 books (one book a week), however I will amend this goal right up until the 1st December depending on how well I am doing. I would love to aim for 100 books like I have the last few years, but the truth of this is I have only ever hit this once in 2020, and I think I need to lower it for now. 52 books however is still nearly double the amount of books I read in 2022, so I would be so happy with that!
• Read more books from my physical TBR – I have gotten into this habit in the last few years, where I will listen to an audiobook for a book I do not own. I would like to work through the books that I own and read more of them. Over the years, I have accumulated a lot because I enjoy collecting them! But I would like to have read more books from my physical TBR than the ones on a Wishlist.
• Read one book a month in a physical format – I would like to keep this goal from last year! It is something I have struggled with in recent years and I would really love to get back into a place where I can focus on the pages and not get distracted from it. Or be overcome with guilt for reading instead of doing something else. I don’t want to get caught up in having a time restriction for myself either when it comes to reading in a physical format – if it takes me the whole month to finish it, then so be it.
• Review or have a discussion post for 50% of the books that I read – I really like writing reviews and discussion posts for the books that I have read, but last year I really slacked. I think I only wrote 3 or 4 reviews in total and I would really like to change that going forward!
• Complete at least 3 of the series that are unfinished on my shelves – over the years, I have started so many book series that are currently unfinished on my shelves. I have made multiple posts talking about this: here and here and here, but there are so many more since I wrote those initial posts discussing the book series unfinished on my shelves. It is unrealistic that I will finish all of them, so I hope to finish at least 3 of them.

That is all from me today! Let me know what you reading goals for 2023 are!

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