It’s a new year, which means it’s time to take a look at what I want to try and accomplish this year. And that includes my reading. For me, reading is not just a fun activity, it’s something I can do to help me grow. I love learning new things and educating myself, and books are one of the best ways to do that. So I enjoy setting goals for myself to help get me out of my comfort zone and explore new things, whether they’re topics or genres or authors.

This year, I’m mostly continuing my goals from last year, many of which I didn’t quite meet and want another shot at. But I’m also not putting pressure on myself to achieve too much with my reading this year. Last year, I got burnt out, and I just want to have a chill reading year. And also read a lot of good books. I’m going to focus more on reading whatever I’m in the mood for, so I am not setting myself a yearly reading list this year. I usually end up abandoning it anyway. Instead, I’m going to concentrate more on my overall reading goals.

Here are my reading goals for 2023:

read 100 books

This is pretty much the standard reading goal I plug into Goodreads every year. There have only been a couple of times I haven’t gotten to 100 books, one of which was last year. This year, I really want to focus on reading as much as I can. I’ve been kind of in a weird headspace, but I want to try and get back into my regular reading habits this year. Or at close as I can, at least. I’m keeping my fingers crossed that 2023 doesn’t send any crazy curveballs my way to throw my reading off course.

I know we’re less than two weeks in, but right now, I’m exactly on track to finish 100 books this year. Which isn’t bad, but I’m trying to get ahead early since I know there will be a few times this year I won’t be able to read very much. I just want to finish out this year not feeling like I didn’t read as much as I wanted to. I know 100 seems like a lot to some people, and I’ve seen some people read twice as many in a year. For me, it’s a bit of a challenge, but not one I have to pause everything else in my life to complete. Which is the perfect balance.

read at least one nonfiction book a month – 25% overall

This has been a goal of mine for a while now, and I love it. Reading one nonfiction book a month has become habit for me at this point. I even went over a month last year where I was only in the mood to read nonfiction. And it was easily one of my best reading months of the year. I think nonfiction is the perfect way to learn new things and branch out a bit with my reading. Even though this might seem like a challenging goal to some people, it’s probably the easiest one on my list. Last year, I ended up reading a total of 31% nonfiction, which might be the highest percentage I’ve ever done.

This year, I honestly want to try and lower that a tiny bit. My goal is still to have nonfiction be a quarter of my reading. But at the end of last year, I felt like I hadn’t read enough fiction. I learned a lot and loved so many of the nonfiction books I read. But they didn’t quite satisfy my desire to read more creative and imaginative stories. I’m obviously not going to be mad if I go through another nonfiction binge and end up reading more again, but I want to strike a balance that feels more comfortable for me.

read at least 50% by authors of color

In 2021, I came so close to hitting this goal! I was at just over 47% total, which was almost double what I’d been doing in previous years. Last year, I started very strong. But then the reading slumps hit and the books I was picking up to try and pull myself out of them didn’t help with this goal at all. I ended up finishing out 2022 with just short of 43% of my reading by authors of color. Which is a lot more disappointing than any of the other 2022 goals I failed to hit.

This year, I am determined to finally hit this goal! I’m going to really push myself to hit it and not let myself fall behind at any point – I have a whole spreadsheet to track it and everything. This goal is important to me both as a reader and a book blogger. Not only do I value exposing myself to new cultures and experiences and backgrounds as a reader, I realize the importance of sharing those books with all of you. This will be the year I hit 50% so next year I can challenge myself even more and increase it.

If you want to read more about why this goal is such a challenge (when it should be so easy), I wrote a whole post about it a while back, so go check that out.

read 50% set outside of the US

I think a lot of my goals tie together. I set this one because I realized that in trying to read more BIPOC authors, I was just picking up a lot of books set in America. And I want to diversify that even more. I should be reading books by Asian authors set in Asia. Or African authors set in Africa. Instead of reading fifty books about the Black American experience, I want to branch out a bit more and try to find a good balance. I also want to read from experiences that are more diverse and different than my own or even things I’ve read a lot of before. I want to explore the world a bit more.

However, I am putting a bit of a caveat on this particular goal. In the past, when I tried to read more books set outside the US, I don’t exactly read diversely. I end up reading a lot of books from Europe, but by white authors. Which are fine, but not exactly the point of this goal. So I want to keep an eye on this one and make sure I’m not just meeting it by reading a bunch of books set in England. Or even reading another ten books set in Japan. The point is to read more globally. But more than that, if I notice that meeting this goal is making it difficult to make sure I’m reading more by BIPOC authors, I will prioritize that goal over this one. I’m going to try and balance and combine them as much as I can, but we will see how that goes.

read 6 translated books

Also trying into the previous goal is this one. I don’t think this will be a huge challenge for me. Last year, I read nine translated books even though I read a lot fewer books overall. So I don’t anticipate this being a struggle. However, it’s something I want to keep making a point to seek out, so I’m hoping this goal will help me just kind of keep translated books in mind when I’m looking for new books to read.

read 6 classics

This goal is a rollover from last year because I didn’t quite hit it. I only managed to read four classics, which isn’t terrible. But also not great. I’d be more okay with it if I abandoned this goal for the sake of hitting another one, but they all just kind of fell to the wayside. I’m currently planning out some classics I want to try and get to this year, including some translated ones and some by BIPOC authors – which are not easy to find.

For me, this goal is aimed at making sure I don’t ignore classics in favor of all the new books that sound more fun. There are a lot of classics I want to get to, and I think one every two months is a decent pace. I’m not going to kill myself trying to read them if they’re taking too much time or interfering with my other reading. I’m also contemplating attempting a big, intimidating classic this year. And if I go that route, I’m not going to be mad if I read fewer than six. But I do want to keep reading classics each year, and I want to see how this goes and how I fit it in with my other goals.

other things I’m focusing on

I always plan on limiting the number of goals I track every year, just because it gets overwhelming if I’m trying to balance and keep track of everything I want to accomplish with my reading. But there are a few things that I want to focus on when I can. I’m not tracking them, there’s no pressure, but they are things I just want to be thinking about when I choose the books I read this year.

The first is that I want to read more books with disabled or neurodiverse characters, by disabled or neurodiverse authors. I actually ended up reading quite a few of these last year, and absolutely loved it. I might end up keeping track just, but I don’t have a set goal. But if you have any recommendations, let me know!

I also want to work on reading more physical books. I’ve been doing a lot of audiobooks because my attention span has just been not great, and when I multitask by playing a game on my phone or knitting or something, I can pay attention to the book. There’s nothing really wrong with that, I just miss sitting down with a book in my hand and having a nice, cozy reading day. And I want to get back to doing that.

Mostly, I just want to have a nice, relaxing reading year. With lots of cozy reading days and good books. So here’s to 2023! I hope it’s a great reading year for all of us!