The advantage of using an external site like GoodReads is that it does all the hard work for you when it comes to summaries. It stores all the data and keeps it handy when it comes to doing the yearly write-up.

I started using Goodreads right at the end of 2019, so my data for that year was one solitary book. In 2020 I set myself the arbitrary goal of 44 books. For 2021, I wanted to push that goal a bit further and went for 50.

I am over the moon that I managed to beat this goal by such a large margin! 79 books in a year. That’s a book and a half a week (If we’re purely looking at it in averages)

For 2022, I’ve set myself a goal of 52 books, a book a week – I like goals to be manageable, and who knows what the year will bring after the last couple we’ve had!?

I didn’t set myself any other goals for the year. I’ve not always put that much thought into the books I read and tend to pick them up on a whim; I’d like that whimsical approach to stop this year – in some respects, there will always be a bit of randomness to what I read – and have already started using an organizer for release dates for my NetGalley reads. If nothing else, this past year has proven that I have the power to stick at something and a level of organization to that can only help! I’d also like to use NetGalley a lot more this year, as I find reading ARCs fulfills the desire to be ‘useful.’ I want to help make books succeed and NetGalley feels like a step in the right direction.

2021 wasn’t just about reading ‘more’ though. Arbitrary numbers don’t mean anything and I do remember telling myself I’d like to:

• Read more Independent Authors
• Read more Black Library
• Read some larger books

I’m pretty sure I managed these goals – I briefly joined a website called Vocarious Readers Only and there was a group on Twitter that sent out books to readers in return for a review (Can’t remember the name though) both of which worked with independent authors. I’m not using these sites anymore so not sure what that’ll mean moving forward but I’ve found that a lot of independent authors aren’t picked up by mainstream publishing houses for a reason. Not all of them as one of my favorite reads of last year was an Independently published novel, I just don’t think I’ll actively seek them out.

As for longer novels, I managed a fair few – five, I think – most of them written by Robert Galbraith and part of the Cormoran Strike series; which started off pretty slowly and got better as I went on. I read four out of the five in the series and am looking forward to reading Troubled Blood in the near future too.

According to Goodreads, the highest rated book I read was Nathaniels got the Blues, an independently written novel by David L Heaney about a rat that has lost his spark for life and what he does to correct it. I love the moral to this story and often talk about it when asked ‘What book left a lasting impression on you?’ It’s one of those books that reminds me of the brutal anthropomorphic cartoon movies I grew up with; Watership Down and The Secret of Nihm. It was both heart-warming and heart-breaking.

I almost made my next Sharpe read the first book of this year too… I should have done!

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So what’s this year going to look like? I’d like to read more Historical Fiction – namely the ones I brought of my Father-in-Law earlier in the year.

I’d also like to read more Black Library (again) and branch out into the Crime series as well as pick up Age of Sigmar books.

I’d like to keep a better record of the books I read so I have some fancy graphs to share with everyone at the end of next the year – though this sort of thing was never my forte, so it’ll take some figuring out!

As a part of taking the book reading forwards more, there will probably be a bit of a dip in other types of posts. I currently have no interest in drawing/arting, so that won’t hinder the page-turning; but I am enjoying hobby painting still, so that’ll be included on the blog! On that front, I’d like to stream a bit more and just… see what I can do!