Top Ten Tuesday – My Reading and Blogging Goals for 2023

 

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 Bookish Goals for 2023.  I think most of these are repeats of goals I had for 2022, either because I failed at them last year or because I did okay and really want to continue to work on that same goal in the coming year.

 

via GIPHY

My Reading and Blogging Goals for 2023

 

1)  My number one goal this year is a repeat goal from the past three years 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 lost track of how many I read last year, but I know I put a pretty good dent in the oldest unread books I own. I’m not taking part in any challenges aside from Goodreads this year but I am setting a personal goal for myself of reading 70 books I already own.  I’ve already read 4 books I own in January so hopefully that bodes well for another good year.

 

2)  This is also a repeat goal from 2022 and 2021.  I really want to continue to only participate in blog tours where I have already requested a review book.  I did really well with this last year, but it’s always so tempting when someone reaches out with a tour opportunity.

 

3)  This is also an ongoing goal since my struggle to finish series continues.  In 2022, I had a list of 3 series I wanted to finish or get caught up in and another list of 7 series that I wanted to start.  I finished none of the series from the first list and started (and finished!) one from the second list. For this year, I have 6 series on my shelf that I want to finish and 6 sitting on my shelf that I want to start.

Series I Want to Finish or Get Caught Up On: 

  • Lifelike by Jay Kristoff (2 books left)
  • The Aurora Cycle (2 books left)
  • The Inheritance Games (2 books left)
  • City of Brass (2 books left)
  • Crescent City (Re-read book 1, then read book 2)
  • Bridgerton (5 books left)

Series I Want to Start:

  • The Consortium Rebellion
  • Six Crimson Cranes
  • The Celestial Kingdom
  • The Great Library
  • The Invisible Library
  • The Bloodsworn Saga

 

4)  This is also a repeat goal from the past two years.  I really want to continue to grow my Bookstagram account.  Last year was my most consistent year since I started the account so I really want to build on that. Posting more and engaging more with other accounts are my two hot items this year.  If you have a bookstagram account and are not already following me, you can give me a follow at https://instagram.com/thebookishlibra

 

5)  Re-reading more.  This is also a repeat goal and one I failed at in 2022.  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.

  • House of Earth and Blood
  • Aurora Rising
  • Ninth House
  • The Handmaid’s Tale
  • The Invisible Life of Addie Larue
  • The Chronicles of Narnia (5 books) – I did manage to re-read the second book in the series in 2022.
  • Pride and Prejudice
  • Jane Eyre

 

6) I am aiming to keep my Netgalley percentage at 85% or above in 2022.  I did very well with this goal in 2022, finishing the year at 95%.  I know I can’t keep it that high, but if I could maintain 85, I’d consider that a success.

 

7)  I say this every year, but in 2023, I want to read more Nonfiction.  Most years I only read maybe 1 or 2 nonfiction books.  I’m setting a personal goal of 1 nonfiction book every two months. Here’s a list of some of the titles I’m hoping to read:

  • What Unites Us by Dan Rather
  • The Light We Carry by Michelle Obama
  • 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
  • Spare by Prince Harry
  • Untamed by Glennon Doyle
  • Where the Light Enters, Building a Family, Discovering Myself by Jill Biden

 

8)  This is a forever goal, haha.  In 2023, I really want to work on being better organized, particularly when it comes to blogging ahead.  I’m usually frantically writing posts the night before I want to post them and I would love to be able to get most, if not all, of my posts for the week done the weekend before.

 

9)  Revisit Shakespeare.  This is yet another repeat from last year because honestly I forgot about it and my son’s class put minimal effort into reading Romeo and Juliet.  I don’t know if Shakespeare just isn’t being taught as much these days as it was when I was in high school or if his class was the exception, but it surprised me how quckly they breezed past it.  So yeah, if I revisit the Bard this year, it will just be for me rather than to have any meaningful conversations with the kid about him, haha.

 

10) I am doing the Goodreads Challenge and have set my goal at 175 books.  I read 233 books in 2022 and could probably replicate that this year since we have cancelled our cable TV.  I stream a few shows here and there, but for the most part, I spend almost all of my downtime reading.  But to keep it from being too stressful, although still challenging, I’m aiming for 175.

*****

Do we share any bookish goals this year?

23 replies
  1. Carla
    Carla says:

    These are great goals, Suzanne. I am only doing a few challenges this year and two of them are Non-Fiction Challenge and Finishing The Series. They were two that encouraged me to do two things I really wanted to do. Good luck sticking to your goals and challenges in 2023.

  2. Angela
    Angela says:

    I definitely want to read more from my shelves. I borrowed a lot of books from my sister and I want to clear them out. I’d love to reread more, but my reading pace is so slow these days, it’s hard to justify taking days out to reread something when there are so many new books on my TBR. But, we’ll see! Good luck with all your goals!

  3. Tammy @ Books, Bones & Buffy
    Tammy @ Books, Bones & Buffy says:

    These goals seem ambitious but totally doable. I’m trying to read more backlist/purchased books this year, and I love your blog tour goal. I almost completely stopped doing blog tours last year and it really takes the pressure off😁 Good luck!

  4. Lydia
    Lydia says:

    These are great goals.

    The Magician’s Nephew is my favourite Narnia book to reread. There are so many fun references in it to other books in the series. 🙂

  5. Lark
    Lark says:

    Reading more of my own books and completing series…I need to work on both of those, too. And your list of nonfiction titles looks really good. Good luck with all of your reading goals this year! 😀

  6. ShootingStarsMag
    ShootingStarsMag says:

    I definitely have a lot of the same goals. I’m a lot busier these days that I NEED to start writing and scheduling things ahead. I did okay last year, but I need to be better with it. I also want to read more nonfiction as I really do love it and I have quite a few I’ve been meaning to read for awhile. Also, I just want to keep reading more of what I own too. Finishing series is a big one for me. I want to re-read Nevernight by Jay Kristoff and then finally read the next two. I have the last Inheritance Games to read. Just started the Throne of Glass series, so gotta keep up with that. Need to read books 2 and 3 in the Nevermoor series, and continue Percy Jackson (only read book 1), among others. LOL

    -lauren

  7. Jo
    Jo says:

    I always do the Goodreads Challenge, and I’m also trying to finish some of my unfinished series this year. It wasn’t an official goal of mine but I’ve also been increasing the amount of non-fiction I’ve been reading each year and I’m sure it will be the same this year as I find more non-fic books that I want to read. We spent a lot of time on Shakespeare when I was in school as he was a big part of our English Literature GCSE, but then I am in the UK so I don’t know if that’s a cultural difference that we spend more time on Shakespeare here. Honestly, I don’t think studying Shakespeare does anything to get teenagers actually interested in his work, I much prefer actually going to see Shakespeare plays than I did endlessly studying the language and symbolism!

  8. Tanya @ Girl Plus Books
    Tanya @ Girl Plus Books says:

    I think I’ve given up on blogging ahead. lol It’s a nice thought, but I have to face facts that it’s not going to happen. 🙂 Over the last 2-3 years I’ve made an effort to read more from my own shelves/Kindle and I’ve found that I’ve enjoyed what I read so much more.

  9. Vero The Moon Phoenix
    Vero The Moon Phoenix says:

    Six Crimson Cranes is so good, hope you can read it soon. When you finish reading We Should All Be Feminist, go to youtube and search for the author’s Ted Talk, she read an excerpt from that book and her voice is wow, so powerful

  10. Sam@WLABB
    Sam@WLABB says:

    The thing with the NG ratio is how many books have you requested/reviewed. I am near 1000, so my ratio hardly moves. It takes a lot of books to get that 1%. Funny, I haven’t done a blog tour in years. I stopped doing them in 2020, but before that, I was really only doing ones I already had the book for. Good luck with your goals!!!

  11. Mica - Away From The Blue
    Mica - Away From The Blue says:

    These are such great goals! I find I read in my downtime more than watching Tv too but I only managed 139 books last year. Still more than the year before! But this year I’m going to be reading more books I already bought from opshops and things too, I have a pile of them and I don’t know if I want to keep them until I’ve actually read them!

    Good luck with your goals 🙂

  12. Sharon
    Sharon says:

    Very good goals. And number 8 always makes me laugh 😀 I am with you on Series. I struggle with them as well. In fact if I see a new book but it is the first in the series, I usually shy away from it only because I know myself. I think a lot of my problem is trying to remember the previous books if it takes a while for the next one to come out.

  13. Rachel
    Rachel says:

    I’d like to be more organized with blogging too. Most the time I’m writing up my posts the night before they go live and it would be nice to get ahead! I’d also like to grow my Instagram account. We’ll see how it goes. Good luck with all your goals, Suzanne!

  14. Literary Feline
    Literary Feline says:

    Series reading and nonfiction are among my goals this year as well–both ongoing. I hope you enjoy The Invisible Library series when you read it. It’s one of my favorite series. Good luck with your goals, Suzanne!

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