So, after all that rambling here are my reading goals for 2016:
I’m cutting back to only 4 planned
challenges at AAR. I will probably add a fifth just for novellas. But the challenges are for 16 books each (we match the year), so I want to have an easy-to-reach goal. Included within the various planned challenges my goals are:
- Read one older series which is complete (no new books to be released)
- Read a series by a new-to-me author
- Start a new-to-me “in progress” series (more books yet to be released)
- Catch up and remain current on Marie Farrarella’s Cavanaugh Justice series — I’m currently 2 books behind
- Catch up and remain current on Julie Miller’s The Precinct series — I’m currently 1 book behind
- Catch up completely on at least two auto-buy authors I’ve fallen behind reading
- Pick 10 “Must Read” books for the year NOT included in above series/author goals. (Existing TBR only, no 2016 releases) — I went through and chose a combination of backlist titles by favorite and new-to-me authors. While some are part of a series, most are stand-alones. The books were picked somewhat to fill the year-published or a few hard-to-match categories in the various AAR challenges. A few I chose because at the time I purchased them I was super excited to read them and then they got lost in my TBR mountain, so I’m hoping to recapture the I-want-to-read-this feeling.
Around a third of the books I have scheduled to read for the various AAR challenges are 2016 releases by my favorite authors. While that’s not all of the books I will no doubt buy in 2016, they are the ones I absolutely know I will be eager to read as soon as they are released or close to it.
I like doing the challenges because they make it easy to mix-and-match favorite authors, new releases, backlist titles, and new-to-me authors. And for 99.9% of the categories I already own more than one book which will fit, so it’s super easy to switch out one title for another if I need to. They really do help cut down on the TBR even though I often add to it more quickly than I take away.
Not included in the challenges which are only new-to-me books, I plan to reread Nalini Singh’s Psy/Changeling again series this year. I am really looking forward to it.
I also will read books above and beyond what I use for the AAR challenges. I’m very much a mood reader so it may be that nothing I’ve loosely “scheduled” to read appeals to me at the moment. But I should be able to find something in my TBR for any given mood. That’s when I turn on the cover view in Calibre and go “shopping” in my various libraries
And knowing myself I will also undoubtedly do some rereading. I used to pick one author and one series a year to do this for, but except for the Psy/Changeling reread I’m not going to plan any rereads for this year. I will just pick something when the mood strikes.
~~~
What are your reading goals for the year? Any specific series or authors you want to try?