Top Ten Tuesday – My Reading and Blogging Goals for 2021

Top Ten Tuesday was created by The Broke and the Bookish in June of 2010 and was moved to That Artsy Reader Girl in January 2018. It was born of a love of lists, a love of books, and a desire to bring bookish friends together.  Top Ten Tuesday has been one of my favorite memes ever since I started blogging, so huge thanks to Jana for taking over the hosting duties!

This week’s TTT topic is Resolutions/Hopes for 2021 (bookish or not!).  Since I haven’t yet posted my list of goals for reading and blogging, I’m going that route this week.  Some of these are new goals, while others are repeats of goals I had for 2020, either because I failed at them last year or because I did okay and want to continue to work on that same goal in the coming year.

(Edited to add – I will be striking through titles on this list as I read them  in order to keep track of my progress).

via GIPHY

My Reading and Blogging Goals for 2021

1)  My number one goal this year is a repeat goal from 2020 and that is to read more of the books I own.  I love ARCs of course, but I hate feeling like I’m neglecting books I’ve purchased.  I actually did pretty good with this goal last year, reading 53 of the books I had physically sitting on my shelves.  Where I didn’t do as well, however, were all of those ebooks I have sitting on my kindle.  They were basically out of sight, out of mind since I had all of those physical books staring me in the face.  To help better keep track of those ebooks, I have made myself a MASTER LIST of all of the books I own and want to read in 2021.  I’m not taking part in any challenges this year but am setting a goal for myself of reading 60 books I already own.

2)  This is also a repeat goal from 2020.  I really want to continue to only participate in blog tours where I have already requested a review book.  I did pretty well at this in 2020; I think I only ended up participating in one tour where I didn’t already have the book and I really cut down on the number of tours I did overall.  Hoping to stay on track in 2021.

3)  This is also an ongoing goal since my struggle to finish series continues.  In 2020, I had a list of 9 series I wanted to finish or get caught up in.  I finished 2 series, got caught up in 2 others, and read one book in another.  So yeah, not great.  For this year, I have 8 series that I want to finish and 3 new ones sitting on my shelf that I want to start.

Series I Want to Finish or Get Caught Up On: 

• The Nevernight Chronicle (1 book left)
• An Ember in the Ashes (2 books left)
• Arc of a Scythe (1 book left)
• Red Winter (2 books left)
• The Wrath and the Dawn (1 book left)
• Legacy of Orisha (ongoing series, but I’m one book behind)
• Cursebreakers (1 book left)
• The Mortal Instruments (3 books left)

Series I Want to Start:

• Daughter of Smoke and Bone
• City of Brass
• Legend

4)  This is also a repeat goal from last year.  I really want to work more on my Bookstagram account.  Sometimes I post every day of the week, but then disappear for weeks at a time.  I want to work on posting more consistently, taking better photos, and on interacting more on the platform.

5)  I also want to get better when it comes to re-reading books I love.  To keep it low pressure, I’m setting a personal goal of 1 re-read a month.  Below are the books I’m hoping to re-read.  Some are old favorites, while others are series books I need to re-read in order to facilitate goal #3 above.

• The Night Circus
• To Kill a Mockingbird
• Rebecca
• Children of Blood and Bone
• Red Winter
• The Chronicles of Narnia (7 books) – As of 12/24, I’ve re-read only the first book.
• The Wrath and the Dawn

6) I am aiming to keep my Netgalley percentage at 85% or above in 2021.  I did pretty good with this goal in 2020, definitely better than in prior years, so I’m hoping I can continue to not request more than I can reasonably keep up with.

7)  In 2021, I really want to increase the amount of Nonfiction titles I read.  Most years I only read maybe 1 or 2 nonfiction books.  As with the re-reads, this year I’m setting a personal goal of 1 nonfiction book a month. Here’s a list of titles I’m hoping to read:

• A Promised Land by Barack Obama
• The Audacity of Hope by Barack Obama
• My Own Words by Ruth Bader Ginsburg
• The Truths We Hold: An American Journey by Kamala Harris
• Hidden Figures by Margot Lee Shetterly
• Hamilton by Ron Chernow (I started this in 2020 but haven’t finished it yet).
• What Unites Us by Dan Rather
• We Should All Be Feminists by Chimamanda Ngozi Adichie
• Code Girls: The Untold Story of the American Women Code Breakers Who Helped Win WWII by Liza Mundy
• D-Day Girls: The Spies Who Armed the Resistance, Sabotaged the Nazis, and Helped Win WWII by Sarah Rose
• A Woman of No Importance: The Untold Story of the American Spy Who Helped Win WWII by Sonia Purnell
• All Boys Aren’t Blue by George M. Johnson
• Untamed by Glennon Doyle

8)  In 2021, I really want to work on being better organized. I’ve never been a super-organized person, but the pandemic and everything that has happened because of it (working from home, having my child at home for virtual schooling since last March, etc.) has really done a number on what few organizational skills I had, haha.  I need to get back on track in terms of my work-life balance, and in terms of my blog (consistent posts, a more consistent schedule for blog hopping, etc.).  It will be baby steps of course because I’m still working from home and we’re still short-staffed, and my child is still doing virtual school for the foreseeable future, but there will be some progress.

9)  This year I really want to have some guest posting on my blog.  One of my BFFs is also an avid reader and I’ve been talking to her about maybe doing some buddy reads/reviews with me or perhaps even sharing some reviews of her own. She reads a lot of mysteries and psychological thrillers so I think her recs would be a great addition since I haven’t been reading much in those areas of late.

10) Lastly, I’ve already mentioned that I’m not doing any challenges this year.  That’s not strictly true. I am doing the Goodreads Challenge and have set my goal at 150 books.  I read 173 books in 2020 but some of that was due to the pandemic and politics and never wanting to turn on my TV.  In hopes that 2021 won’t be a repeat, I’m sticking with the 150.  It’s challenging but definitely doable, especially based on all of my reading goals above.

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Do you have any reading or blogging goals in mind for 2021?