2012 Reading Goals

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A Young Girl Reading, Jean-Honoré Fragonard

Happy New Year! Let’s all hope we survive the end of the Mayan calendar this year, mainly so people on the “History” Channel (lately, I’m thinking some sort of federal authority ought to require them to use the quotation marks) will quit talking about it.

I met my reading goal of 50 books in 2011, which was my best ever year. While I do want to read more books this year, I am not sure I could read much more than 50, so I’m setting this year’s goal at 52, only a moderate increase over last year’s goal. It also rounds out to an even book a week.

I am participating in the following reading challenges this year:

All of these challenges allow for books to be counted for more than one challenge, which is great. Otherwise I’d need to pare back.

Last year I made it a goal to improve the tagging on my blog posts, which is still an area I need to work on. I am posting more regularly, and the review posts include the authors’ names now, which I think has contributed to making them more useful. I need to work on titling meme posts so that they are more descriptive of the content rather than just titling them after the meme and using the date. I need to get back in the habit of doing Teaser Tuesdays. I realized in looking back at my posts that I actually liked those posts quite a lot more than I thought I did. Also, I think it’s a good way to introduce readers to favorite quotes in books. Another goal I have for my blogging is to post more often about book and literature-related issues, which I started out doing, but gradually cut back on. In reflecting on my favorite posts of the year 2011, I found those types of posts were more frequently my own favorites, and it stands to reason that if I liked them better, perhaps readers do too.

I have some other reading goals for the year.

  1. Find the time/energy to revive the faculty book club I have led at my school. My colleagues have been asking me about it.
  2. Comment more on reading blogs. I subscribe to many in my feed reader, but I don’t leave comments as often as I think about it.
  3. Clean out my blogroll/RSS feed reader once a month and eliminate bloggers who haven’t posted in a while (unless they announced a hiatus and plan to be back).
  4. Read books set in a larger variety of locales. I don’t want to push it artificially, and I want to read what I want to read, but I did notice the books I read this year were clustered in two locations: the east coast of the U.S. and the U.K. I guess it makes sense, but even with the U.S., I only read two books set in western states (Colorado and Washington) and one set in the midwest (Wisconsin, though that was [amazon_link id=”0060558121″ target=”_blank” ]American Gods[/amazon_link], which is set all over America, and I picked the place the character settled down the longest).

Outside of reading, blogging, and reading about blogging, I have some more goals for the year.

  1. Continue the exercise regimen I started before Christmas. My Christmas present to myself (from the family, I guess) was a Wii Fit, which my sister said was great for beginners. I started a yoga/aerobic/strength training regimen that I have been faithfully doing every day for about a week (barring Christmas, mainly because I didn’t take the Wii down to my parents’ house, where we spent Christmas). It’s actually been a lot of fun to use the Wii Fit program.
  2. Learn to knit. My sister learned from watching videos, and frankly, I hope I can teach myself using videos or tutorials rather than take a class. But I should like to learn so I can make Hogwarts house scarves for everyone in the family according to their house colors (Maggie and Sarah are Hufflepuffs, Steve’s a Slytherin, I’m a Ravenclaw, and Dylan hasn’t been officially sorted in Pottermore, so I’ll either let him pick or sign him up for Pottermore when it’s out of beta). Maggie and Sarah seemed to like the idea of having Hufflepuff scarves, so it sounds like a plan.
  3. Cook more. It’s hard with work and everything else, but it’s more economical. I have done fairly well this year, but there is always room for improvement. I get bored of the same old things over and over. I like trying out new (simple) recipes and saving the more time-consuming/difficult stuff for weekends, holidays, or breaks. Cooking more means planning better and perhaps even a membership at one of those wholesale warehouses. I have a family of five, and we go through the food. I need to be smarter about the food budget. I have quite a few food-related books on my TBR list, too. I love watching TV about food and reading about food.

What about you? Do you have any reading goals or other goals for 2012?


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11 thoughts on “2012 Reading Goals

  1. Learning to knit is on my list of things to do in 2012, too. A friend gave me knitting needles and yarn in a carrier a couple of years ago w/ a promise to teach me how to knit. She retired last year, so she definitely has time to teach me. I'm holding her to that promise.

  2. I loved your reading challenge: Books I should have read in School, but didn't. I notice that you aren't posting it again. Would you mind if I reposted it this year? I would give you credit for starting it. Or do you know if someone else is hosting it this year?

    Anne

    My Head is Full of Books

  3. I think you have a nice set of realistic goals for yourself! Good luck in reaching them and I hope 2012 brings you many five star reads — and that the whole Mayan thing is wrong! That would be a major bummer.

  4. I'm glad I know people for whom books are such a central part of how they go through the world. Dana, you're like a reading whirlwind, generating and sharing powerful ideas from your reading, and leaving your followers a little breathless.

    My 2012 reading goals are a bit more peripatetic. I tend to wander from book to book, according to my interests of the moment. This year, however, I want to read more books about good things going on in schools, particularly in English classrooms.

    Thanks, and Happy New Year!

  5. Enjoyed your recent posts, now I am thinking about the new year's reading goals as well! Last year I read two for the Books I should have read in school challenge and really enjoyed them. I would have never gotten around to reading them otherwise, so thanks for the idea. I think I'll be trying the Mount TBR, Mix it up, Why buy the cow, and YA challenges, along with my own personal one of reading from various American authors. Each year I also purposely read a few books that have been on the 'banned' list.

    1. I'm glad you read the books and that the challenge helped! I like the other ones I signed up for this year, and I'm glad to see you're aboard.

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