My 2020 Reading Goals

It seems rather counter-productive, doesn’t it? I mentioned just two days ago that my main focus for this year was on resting, and not forcing myself too much… And then here I am, nagging on about my 2020 reading goals. Fear not, though – here too, rest is central – read on to find out how!

No pressure

Last year, I read over 200 books, which, first of all, is frigging mental. I mean, I don’t know what happened (well, I do, but that’s something for the next part of this post). But I do know myself.

And knowing myself means that realising I will most likely try to improve that result this year. So I set my Goodreads reading goal at 25 and I’ll just up it by 25 throughout the year, as and when I reach the current goal. No pressure for me in 2020! (Yeah right)

I may try to take on some reading challenges as well (the Modern Mrs Darcy is a recurring theme throughout this blog, after all) but it will be a matter of “oh, this book just happens to fit this prompt”, not reading for the prompt. Hopefully.

Pleasure first

In case you were wondering? Yes, I did have a little giggle when I wrote this title. However, it is strictly my goal for reading this year – and I’m approaching it in two ways.

Firstly, I want to read the books that I want to read – will that result in my TBR remaining untouched? Maybe. (although – let’s be honest – more likely than not, it’ll just grow). Does that mean I can DNF whatever book I’m reading if I don’t like it immediately? Yes. All in all, any time I choose a book, I’m going to try to actually choose it because I want to read it – not because it’s all the hype, because I feel like I should have read it, or because I want to be able to say I did.

Second? I want to read for pleasure – as apposed to for escapism. Now, sure, escapism is a good reason to read. Unless, of course, you’re me, and you force yourself to book after book to avoid thinking about the things you really should be thinking about – such as why you can’t say no to people, why you’re constantly feeling guilty for not working more, and why your entire body hurts. (I mean, just go read my 2019 in retrospective post – it’ll clarify a lot)

All that to say that, I want to be more conscious of why I’m reading, and not use it as a way to escape things I should just work through. That’s not to say I won’t read for fun or for minor escapism, of course – just… Hopefully not to the extent that I did last year.

Multilingual

This is a recurring theme every year, isn’t it? I want to read books in other languages than just English, and maybe some Dutch. To be exact, I’d love to read a couple of books in French, and maybe even one or two in Swedish?

I’m currently focusing on Swedish in Duolingo, and as a general rule, I tend to be better at passive language skills than active ones. Also, I can learn a language more easily by actually hearing it used, so again: must read Swedish! The absolute goal? To read at least one of Astrid Lindgren’s books in Swedish this year!

Reviews

For me, this part is intrinsically linked to my 2020 reading goals – after all, I love gushing about the books I read! I am going to make one change, though, namely in using the CAWPILE-system. It’ll hopefully help me in pinpointing exactly what I thought about a book, as well as make it easier to give any book a numeral value.

If you’re completely foreign to this system – no worries, so was I until a couple of days ago, when Book Roast posted the following video:

I’ve tried this rating system on all of the books I’ve read so far, this year, and it does seem to work for me… So who knows – it might for you as well!

Anyways – what are your 2020 reading goals? Do you have a set number of books you want to get through? Are you aiming to make your TBR go down, even if just a little? Be sure to let me know below!

-Saar