My 5 Reading Goals for 2014

I'm planning on (re)starting my reading journey by defining a few goals for myself. As I have mentioned in my last post, I did sign up to Goodreads' 100 books challenge but reaching that goal is not the problem. I simply felt I was reading books of similar genres and that I wasn't really expanding my horizons. I'm still keeping the 100 books challenge but I'm going to further expand on it below.

1. Goodreads 100 books challenge

So far this year, I have already finished 33 books (and that is not including rereads). I will put up my 2014-read list up on a separate page up the top soon so you can keep track along with me all the books I have read. But as you will probably find out, a lot of my books fit into the YA-fiction fantasy/dystopian series genre (it'll make more sense once you see my book list). But in addition to what I will usually read, I plan on tackling the following challenges below.

2. Read 10 classics

I am not a classics fan. Sure, my favourite book of all times is J.R.R Tolkien's Lord of the Rings but beyond that, there are not a lot of classics that I like. Even Jane Austen's Pride and Prejudice, which has the adoration of all my female friends, wasn't more than simply a semi-pleasant read for me. So I want to see if I can change my opinions on this genre (as I know there are a lot of awesome books in here). My goal is to read 10 classics and since we're already in February, it's sort of roughly 1 classic a month with 1 month as a back-up just in case. If I find this experience enjoyable, I would definitely like to expand my classics goal next year.

3. Read 10 books from the genres Science Fiction, Crime/Mystery, Memoir & Historical Fiction

Again, these are genres I don't usually read from at all so I would like to expand my horizons. There are a couple of books I already have in mind such as Arthur Conan Doyle's Sherlock Holmes series, Frank Herbert's Dune (I couldn't finish this one back in high school) and Robert Galbraith's The Cuckoo's Calling. The one genre I did not include here is "Horror" and that is because I have a very low fear threshold. I have only watched one Japanese horror film and that was on a roadtrip with my university friends. Boy did they regret forcing me to watch it. I was so terrified I couldn't sleep and if I couldn't sleep, no one in the entire household was going to get any sleep either. I remained terrified for about two months after the incident too. I have read one of Stephen King's short stories and even that gave me a mild fright. So yeah, I'm not too keen on branching in the horror genre. But everything else is fair game.

4. Read at least 1 play and 1 book of poetry

Believe it or not, I really enjoyed my English classes back in high school. Poetry analysis really made me appreciate something that initially just didn't make sense to me. And poring over Shakespeare's plays line by line really made me enjoy them a lot more than I would normally have. So yeah, I would like to at least read another play and a book of poetry by the end of the year.

5. Write reviews for at least half of the books I read

I find sometimes when I go on a reading spree, I tend to just consume a lot of books without much thought, which I think defeats the whole purpose of reading books in the first place. So by forcing myself to sit down and actually write out my thoughts on the books I've read, I think I'll be able to gain a better appreciation of the books and also learn from them a little.

So yeah, that's all my reading goals for this year. They don't seem like a lot but given what I've been reading for the past month, it might take a lot of willpower to change my ways and try something new. I'll keep you guys posted.

Until next time!