Let’s Talk Bookish is a weekly bookish meme where participants discuss certain topics, share their opinions, and spread the love by visiting each other’s posts. Originally created and hosted by Rukky @ Eternity Books, it’s now hosted by Aria @ Book Nook Bits.
This week’s topic is:
Are Reading Goals Worth It?
(submitted by Aria)
Prompts: We’re two months into 2023 – how are you feeling about your reading this year? Do you have a yearly reading goal? Do you think that those kinds of goals help you to feel motivated to read more books, or just causes stress? If you set yearly reading goals, when and why did you start setting them? Would you consider reading without aiming for a number? If you don’t set reading goals, why not?
A history recap
This is definitely one of those topics that has neither a right or wrong answer, just a personal one. I’ve only been setting a reading goal for the past twelve years. And I had no idea it’d even been that long until I looked at my past Goodreads challenges for this post. I’m currently one book ahead for my reading goal of 80 books for 2023. I’m not sure why, but I generally set my goal at 80 and then raise it to 100 books when we get closer to the end of the year. In my head, I’m giving myself the freedom not to push myself, but then by the last few months of the year, I want to hit 100.
If you’re a follower, you may have heard the story of my reading journey before, but I read profusely in high school and college, majoring in English Literature. My author of choice in those days? Edith Wharton. I still enjoy her writing, but wow, it can be depressing! Then once I got married and had kids, reading anything besides children’s books became a rarity, especially since we were homeschooling. (If I did pick up anything, it was usually nonfiction.) As someone who is always reading something now (usually more than one book), I don’t know how I survived such a long dry spell.
But, when my youngest child reached the age of four, I realized I suddenly had a little more free time, time for myself. Which happened to coincide with the Twilight craze. And I needed the most escapist escape. I was late to the party—I didn’t start reading the books until the first film had been released—but by the release of the second film, I was a hard core fan. So I can’t help but hold a special place for the series for reigniting my love of reading, but I do understand the issues readers have with the books.
Over the next two years, I began reading 80+ books a year and setting a yearly Goodreads reading goal.
Read to write
However, there was a specific thing that prompted me to start setting a reading goal. Before that, I was happy to just mood read—which at the time mostly meant rereading Twilight over and over. Somewhere I’d read Stephen King’s advice that to be a good writer, you should be reading 100 books a year. Or something like that. And I had a small desire to write but knew I wasn’t anywhere near ready. So in my mind that translated to reading. I started setting a goal and haven’t stopped since.
A few years after I started setting reading goals on Goodreads, I started participating in Nanowrimo (National Novel Writing Month), as well. Unfortunately, my love of writing has never eclipsed (see what I did there, Twilight fans) my love of reading, so it’s not something I push myself to do enough. But both loves found a happy home here with my reading blog.
Challenge accepted
I see all you mood readers out there and I’m often a little bit envious. I love the idea of just picking up a random book whenever I feel like it. And I know that day will come again for me. A day when I’m burnt out on setting goals, but I feel like it’s still a few years away.
Because I also know myself, and if I didn’t have a TBR (to-be-read) list to check off, I might just still be rereading Twilight. For the past five years I’ve also been participating in the Popsugar Reading Challenge. It pushes me outside my comfort zone, encouraging me to read books I might otherwise overlook. Any reading challenge would have worked, but that’s the one I landed on. I’ve stuck with it and completed it every year, which gives me a sense of accomplishment associated with my reading, motivating me to read more.
In my case, I’d have to say reading goals are so worth it. It’s because I’ve challenged myself to read more that I’ve become a more empathetic person by reading more diversely, a better writer (thank you, Stephen King!), and found a book community where I feel like I belong.
Let’s Discuss!
Do you set a reading goal? Let me know in the comments!
I’m very goal oriented, so I agree that reading goals are worth it. I would read anyway but I love checking off my goal tracker every time I finish a book.
Yes! I feel so accomplished when I get to check a book off my tracker. 🙂
I do sometimes set reading goals, but never to reach a certain # of books read in a year. My goals are usually more like I want to read 5 more nonfiction books this year, or 10 more science fiction books, or I want to catch up on these 3 series, that kind of goal. And I sometimes sign up for a reading challenge that I know will help me read more classics, or whatever that year. So, those are the kinds of reading goals I sometimes set for myself. 😀
I rarely set goals for specific genres, although last year when I noticed I was reading almost all romance, I did make an effort to pick up other genres. There’s nothing wrong with reading all romance, but I know how much I enjoy other genres, as well. 😉 I do also set goals to read series, but I’ll try to work them into my yearly challenges, too. I do love to multitask. Ha!
Interesting evolution for you (and your love of Twilight that I am now aware of). I do reading challenges for fun, but I also like a bit of structure which appears to align with what you are saying.
Yes! Structure is a good way to put it. I need that accountability. 🙂
I do set reading goals, but they’re pretty fluid. If I see that I might not make it, I’ll change my goal. But sometimes I over shoot my goals, so… I’m okay with setting them, one way or another.
I agree! I like to keep them fairly fluid, as well. I have no qualms about using a short story or children’s book or graphic novel if I’m struggling to fulfill a prompt on a challenge–as long as the challenge allows it. I’ve never come across one that doesn’t, though. And I’ll move my Goodreads goal up or down, as needed. I like the goals, but I need the flexibility, too. 🙂
I just never stick to goals because I’m a mood reader and a procrastinator. So my goal is 1 book this year, and I’ve done it! Works for me lol Its funny you say you’re envious of mood readers, because I’m envious of people who can stick to a reading plan/schedule/goal and actually read more than 1 book per month. The problem with mood reading is that sometimes I just don’t know what I’m in the mood for, so I read nothing xD
Ha! We always want what we don’t have, right?! That’s exactly why I can’t be a mood reader, I’d probably rarely read. 😃
So enjoyed your post . I agree with you about setting goals. For too long, I barely had time to read what I wanted – teaching for 30+ years was all consuming. Summers were a time to catch up. But since I retired I’ve read widely and diversely, thanks to Popsugar, Goodreads and many other challenges. Most I complete, but if not,, at least I got to challenge myself to read books I might never have read. I am still a mood reader at times, but reading is my comfort always.
Thank you, Bev! Yay for retirement and reading! I’m so in awe of teachers. I can’t imagine how hard it is. I was fortunate to stay home, but I did homeschool all three of my kiddos (my youngest has one more year). It was definitely all-consuming, and with just three! 😊 Reading is such a comfort. I’ll never understand people who don’t like to read. Ha!
Great post! I set a reading goal for the Goodreads Challenge, but don’t necessarily stick to my TBR since it’s constantly evolving based on new releases.
Yeah… I like to say books are ‘penciled in’ on my challenges. I always leave room to change them. It’s usually ARCs or new releases that make that happen. 🙂
I like setting goals, but it’s more like I want to read all the books on my Kindle. I set a GR goal just to see how many books I do end up reading, but it never worries me.
That’s awesome! I have way too many books on my Kindle. I need to do a deep cleaning, and then maybe I could think about that goal. 😂
I did a deep cleaning a couple years ago and it was amazing. I took the time to look up books, delete them, and then made a spreadsheet with the remaining ones to read. I managed to go through them all and now I don’t have nearly as much to read on my Kindle, but that actually is a good thing.
I did a light cleaning a few years ago, but you’re motivating me to do a deeper one! It’s hard to remove books, but it always feels great to make new space. 😊
Great response, Dedra. I also didn’t read much when I had kids and worked full time. I was a teacher librarian for several years so besides reading a lot of picture books to my kids, I was also reading a lot of MG books and very little for me. My go to reading was Danielle Steel, Debbie Macomber or Nora Roberts. Now I love setting goals, although I don’t always reach them. They “guide me” and when I achieve them, I am thrilled because I don’t expect to.