Friday, January 3, 2020

Review of 2019 Bookish Goals

It's 2020! It's time to look at my 2019 goals and see how I did. Then I will share my 2020 bookish goals in another post.

1. Read the whole Chronicles of Narnia series.
My friend and I decided to do these on audio, and we discussed them via email. She had a baby around book five so I finished the rest of the series on my own, but I hope we still get to discuss the final books at some point!

2. Reread the Malloreon series on audiobook.
I got a late start on this, but I made it through four of the five books and am in the middle of the final book now!

3. Read some of the unread books on our bookshelf.
I had five books on my shelves (which are separate from my husband's and son's shelves) that I hadn't read; I read four of them and am partway through the fifth. I acquired two new books in 2019, but they are reference books for future parenting stages, so I'm OK with keeping them unread for now.

4. Get roughly 50% of my 2019 reads from my TBR list and 50% from elsewhere.
Just like the previous year, this proved to be too high a target to hit but it pushed me in the right direction; 35 of my 101 books in 2019 were from my original TBR list. That list is now down to 122, so I should get it under 100 in the next year!

5. Read at least three books published in 2019.
Success! I read eight of them. Four made it on my top nonfiction of the year and one on my top fiction.

6. Read at least five books on my "shelf of shame."
I read eight of them! My favorite was Whistling Vivaldi.

7. Read Harry Potter à l'école des sorciers.
I finished this French version of the first Harry Potter book and was able to return it to its owner with a thank-you note. As planned, I followed up each chapter by listening to the corresponding episode of Harry Potter and the Sacred Text. It was a lot of fun to read it in French, and a good match for my language level.

8. Read a few books that are the first in a series.
I read four books that were the first in a series; of these, Binti was the only one for which I continued the rest of the series. I actually put a hold on the sequel to Daughter of Smoke and Bone while I was reading it, and then certain plot developments made me so irritated that I canceled my hold.

9. Get caught up with the Dublin Murder Squad.
I read The Trespasser and loved it! It was the first of the series that got a 5-star rating from me. Then I realized that The Witch Elm was a standalone and not part of the series, so I called this goal done and figured I can come back to that one another time if I feel like it.

10. Read something my sister recommends.
My sister managed to recommend something less creepy than her previous three years' picks: I listened to Sadie on audio at her recommendation and enjoyed it.

Bonus: Read the Tommy and Tuppence books.
This was a goal I added for myself partway through the year, since I finished up all the Poirot books the year before and saw there were only five in this series of Christie's, so I decided to tackle them this year.

How did you do with your 2019 goals?

Looking back:
One year ago I was reading: Cutting for Stone, If You Come Softly, and Pachinko
Five years ago I was reading: The Great Gilly Hopkins and The Canterbury Tales
Ten years ago I was reading: Silas Marner

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