Friday 25 December 2015

All the books I have not read and what my reading life will look like in 2016

The end of 2015 is nigh, and later I'll be going through my statistics, but mostly I feel like I haven't been doing anything I should this year (despite having read over the 50 books I set my sights on). I don't know if it is because I've been listening to most of the books I've read and thus it feels different than reading with my eyes, or if the books that I chose to read weren't what I needed, the ones I've chosen not to read.

My pile(s) of unread books is well known around these parts, and while I've tamed it down to two piles again (instead of the three I operated with earlier) I keep not reading most of them. I think I just need to cut my losses and cull them for 2016. Get rid of those books that I know I won't read, I know myself well enough to know that I won't be reading some of them, ever, and that if I should want to, years down the line I can get them again.

I feel like I haven't read enough, even though I've read some really good books. I've read some not so great ones as well, but no terrible ones (I've stopped reading a couple, because they were not good/not to my tastes). I have read, yet I feel like I have not.

I am reading now though, I'm reading a big fantasy book I've been putting off, I grew tired of high fantasy and escaped it. Now I'm enjoying it again. It is the rise and fall of the reading tide. I started 2015 with high hopes in all areas of my life, and those hopes have all been crushed (and quite frankly if 2016 doesn't turn out better I will quit). I want to do all the things, but I am very bad at doing them. So for 2016 I will join one or two reading challenges, and I'll set my goodreads challenge to 50 books, but I won't be so hard on myself about the books I don't read. I don't need imaginary guilt hanging over me. Those books don't care if I read them or not. They're printed paper, and while some of them may very well change how I feel or think forever, most of them won't, and what I don't know I can't miss.

So for 2016 I will be doing Book Riot's Read Harder challenge. I want to read more varied, they encourage me. I want to read what I want when I want to, and rid myself of the monthly TBR that I've been working with for the past few years, it does not serve me anymore.  That said I'm not ready to abandon the quest to get down to less than 20 unread books in my (physical) possession so I am also joining  2016 Mount TBR Reading Challenge, I'll be aiming no higher than Pike's Peak (12 books from my TBR) in my sign up (coming soon), though secretly hoping for Mount Blanc... I won't be writing a TBR there either, because that did not work out for me this year (with the TBR challenge I did tried to do).

Anyone else feel like 2015 didn't work out, reading wise? Or maybe it was a most excellent reading year?
-Kristine

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