Top Ten Tuesday was created by The Broke and the Bookish and is now hosted by That Artsy Reader Girl. Each week a new theme is suggested for bloggers to participate in.
This week’s theme is Resolutions/Hopes for 2021 (bookish or not!), and I love the chance to write down my goals for this year and think about what I want to keep doing, and what I want to change.
- Start a note page when I start reading a book and take notes as a I go. I know this is gonna be a hard one for me, but it’s so much easier for me to write a review when I’ve got some notes to start from I really want to try to stick to it.
- Non-sff books – at least 6. I only managed 5 last year but I’m confident I can work my way up from there.
- At least 50% books by authors of color. 25% last yearThe Tarot Black Lives Matter Book Bingo really helped me find books I loved and I do well with defined short-term goals. Unless I messed up while counting my stats, I noticed I’d read no books by Latinx or Indigenous authors, so this year I want to try Latinx Book Bingo and Indigathon, I saw these too late to participate in 2020, but I’ve bookmarked them for 2021. Side note, if you know other short-term reading challenges centered on authors with marginalized identities, please let me know.
- At least 50% books by women, this one I should hit pretty easily I think I’ve cleared that mark for the past 2 years
- As many queer books as I can. I’m not gonna track numbers for queer authors cause it feels so invasive trying to figure out if people are queer/out or nice human beings that write inclusive books.
- Books in translation – at least 6, only managed 2 last year, but there’s a challenge for that, so I will be signing up. It’s a full year challenge which doesn’t work as well for me and my procrastinating but will see.
- Reviews: don’t fall so behind. I was constantly 16 reviews behind last year. My fix is to plan sequels and novellas a mini-reviews, and stand-alone, first in series and ARCs as full reviews.
- Get a good Netgalley ratio – I already failed, I was convinced that We Lie With Death by Devin Madson was coming out next Tuesday, but it was today and I only just started the book on Sunday. I did love the first in the series, We Ride the Storm, and this one starts off great, only it is quite too chonky for me to finish in half a day.
- Romanian books – at least 6 – again only 2 last year. Romanian SFF books I’ve tried have either been great or really not my thing, and the ones I picked up last year ended up being a few too many DNFs, but gonna try again, I’ve got some sequels to read.
- Finish some series – already started on this and it’s going pretty well. Since I set this goal at the end of November I’ve made progress on 8 series, feeling pretty good about that.
I was gonna do nicer formatting for this post, but feeling a bit dizzy today and I can’t look at my screen too much. So, nicer formatting next week.
Good luck with your goals, they seem very doable:-) I’m also going to try to read some non SFF books, as I really miss literary fiction and want to also read more mysteries.
I’ve got a couple of history books I’m interested in, and I’ve ordered Invisible Women: Exposing Data Bias in a World Designed for Men which I think I will find very interesting and rage inducing. Planning to balance that out with some fluffy romance.
Good luck…if you need some recs for non-sff…I’m going to avoid whole-year reading resultions this year (except the ever-popular: read my tbr pile) and perhaps join some challenges that run for only 2 or 3 months. I discovered I fare better with those
Yeah, the whole year ones tend to lead to much procrastinating and last-minute panic. I’d love to hear your recs for non-sff, I’m open to pretty much anything right now as I’m trying to figure out what I like.
Good luck with your goals!!!
Thank you!
These sound like some good goals to me! I really like the diversity and inclusive driven ones, and I smiled at the Non-SFF books. Whichever you pick up, I hope you will enjoy! I also hope to read more translation books too this year. Here’s hoping we can both do so 🙂
Thank you! I’m frankly embarrassed how badly I did with translated books last year. Here’s hoping we both do well this year!
(I did mean to say “recs for mystery” but somehow then went to make tea and forgot the second half of the sentence so here are some mystery recs XD)
For actual classical mysteries:
Dorothy Sayer’s Lord Peter Wimsey novels are great. You can just start at the beginning or with Strong Poison (which is the first appearance of Harriet his girlfriend-then-wife who is amazing)
Jefferson Farjeon: Mystery in White is about the ever-popular “murder on a train” but kind of puts a nice twist on it
Cyril Hare: An English Murder is…idk somehow both a parody of a mystery but also a very good mystery. But I don’t think you need to be an absolute mystery buff to appreciate it. It rather pokes fun at some tropes you are probably already at least slightly aware of via pop cultural osmosis XD
Christopher St. John Sprigg: Death of a Queen is essentially murder in Ruritania and just a lot of fun
Recommendation with a caveat for Anne Meredith: Portrait of a Murder because I loved all parts except for the page long anti-Semitic rant halfway through
For written-today-but-very-much-in-the-style-of-1920s:
Carola Dunn’s Lady Daisy series is my go-to comfort read but I admit that the first books are…just nice. But you can easily read them out of order. I especially loved Misteltoe and Murder, The Winter Garden Mystery and Superfluous Women.
Maryla Szymiczkowa: Mrs Mohr Goes Missing is somewhat less cozy than the rest but I love the setting (19th century Poland) and the characters
And then there’s Maggie Robinson’s Lady Adelaide mysteries (Nobody’s Sweetheart Now is the first) which could technically be classified as sff because she does solve murders with the help of her husband’s ghost but it’s very much a mystery first and there just happens to be a ghost hanging round occasionally
Best of luck with your challenges. Like you, I largely read SFF, but I’ve found myself reading quite a sprinkling of murder mysteries this last year as I can’t face anything too bleak. I hope you enjoy the ones you take part in:)).
Thank you! My friends keep telling me I should read some Agatha Christie mysteries, but I’ve already read the ones they keep recommending.
Somebody above has recommended the Lord Peter Wimsey mysteries and I add to that recommendation – if you enjoy Agatha Christie, then these are a joy:)).
Thank you! That’s an excellent list, I’m particularly curious about the one sort of parody one, the Polish one and ofc, the ghost one. TBR’d them