I’ve never liked New Year’s resolutions. I haven’t set them in years, in fact. But I do love a good fresh start to reevaluate my priorities! (it’s the Virgo rising in me) Reading was such a comfort to me in 2022, when my anxiety hit an all-time high, so it feels like in 2023, I should be putting some more care into my reading life.
Now, I’m pretty sure most book-ish types are pretty familiar with the Goodreads reading challenge. I do it just about every year, with varying degrees of success. This year I am setting the goal of reading 52 books in 2023. That’s a good deal lower than what I read in 2022 (I ended up reading 75!) but that’s because this year, I’ve decided I want to set some goals for my reading life for the new year. These goals aren’t a hard and fast check list, just areas of my life that I’ve been thinking I want to delve more into, in addition to my ongoing love of a good romance novel.
So my goals for 2023 are:
- Read more in Spanish.Once upon a time, my Spanish was really good. I helped tutor ESL students in high school, I studied abroad in Spain in college, and even did my foreign language requirement for my MA in Spanish. And then I wasn’t exposed to Spanish as much and I got out of practice, and now my language skills have taken a hard dip. So in 2023, I’m going to try to read my Spanish media. I’m keeping that broad enough to include magazines, and I imagine at first I’m going to be reading books meant for younger readers. My goal is to be able to read the Valeria novels by Elisabet Benavent by the end of the year!
- Read old books. I don’t like the term “classics” but I’d like to read more books that are from different time periods that may be more challenging. Like, I’ve been meaning to actually read some Russian novels for years, and have just never gotten around to it. Some of these may be The Canon, and others might not be (maybe should be?), but I’d like to read more of them.
- Push my emotional comfort zone. Last year was not the year where I really could read anything too emotionally taxing (thanks anxiety!), but this year, I’m feeling like I’m in a place where I can read more emotionally challenging books. I may need to take them slowly, but I think I can do that. Which opens up a whole world of literary fiction that I either avoided or tried and gave up on last year.
- Read more poetry. Poetry is one of those things, like going to art museums, that I fantasize about and love when I do it, but that I don’t do nearly enough. I’d like to slow my pace of living down a bit this year, and I think poetry is one of those things that really asks you to do that, at least if you’re going to get anything out of it. I’ve already checked out some Nikki Giovanni and Mary Oliver from the library to kick me off.
- Write about books. Ah, my blog and socials, I finally have a use for you. Even though I read over 70 books last year, I didn’t really review many other than a star rating on Goodreads. Which is fine, that’s a perfectly valid way to read, and honestly, you don’t even have to do that to have a fulfilling reading life. But for me, I find myself really missing actively engaging the media I consume. I find myself missing grad school and the way we discussed and engaged with the text. Now, I’m not going back to school anytime soon, but I do think that maybe this could be the beginning of my finding a way back into that active engagement.
I’ll check back in on these goals, probably adjusting them as necessary, over the course of the year, because if there’s anything I’ve learned about my ADHD brain, it’s that adjustment will be necessary, and that that’s ok! Do you have any reading goals for the year? Book suggestions for my goals? Please share in the comments!