In many ways, January 2024 has not gone to plan and yet I have managed to spend a lot of time reading. We won’t mention how little time I have spent writing reviews about what I’ve read. And we won’t even think about how many digital ARCs I had last year and failed to write decent reviews for. Hopefully I will redress that balance soon and catch up on some blogging. Time will tell. And a lesson learnt: I need to be much more selective about what I request on NetGalley and Book Sirens. Not to mention the authors that contact me via my blog. I had no idea of the temptation it would be.
Reading resolutions
- Read more of the physical books I have on my shelves already.
- Top priority to BookCrossing books registered and rated by other people.
- Second priority to BookCrossing books passed on by others without reading.
- Try to read as many 1001 List books as possible; I have plenty!
- Read the World as I go: books by authors from different countries if possible, but set in the country is also acceptable.
- Read according to monthly themes set by the BookCrossing Ultimate Challenge (even if I forget to post them on the forum): January: Light and Dark / February: Family / March: Colours / April: Climate and Weather / May: Occupations / June: Clothing / July: Olympics / August: Movies, Plays, and Shows / September: Aquatic Life / October: Containers / November: Mail / December: Time.
Challenges, tags, memes and other madness
- Serious About Series, a challenge on Goodreads to read at least one book in a series per month
- Goodreads A-Z by title challenge
- A-Z by author challenge on the Dutch BookCrossing forum
- Oldest BookCrossing books on the Dutch forum
- Personal 60 Years of Reading challenge to read at least one book for each year of my life, 1963-2023
- #LibraryLove – post, 3rd Monday of every month (Rebecca at BookishBeck)
- January:
- #NordicFINDS24 (Annabel at AnnaBookBel)
- JanuaryInJapan (@Tony_Malone, DolceBelezza2)
- February:
- Reading Ireland Month (Cathy at 746Books)
- #FrenchFebruary (MarinaSofia)
- #ReadIndies (Karen at Kaggsy’s Bookish Ramblings & LizzySiddall)
- Dutch short story week (week van het korte verhaal) 14-21 Feb. 2024 and J.M.A. Biesheuvel Prize (now every 2nd year, in 2025)
- March:
- Reading Ireland Month (Cathy at 746Books)
- April:
- 1937 Club Week (Karen at Kaggsy’s Bookish Ramblings, Simon at Stuck in a Book)
- June/July/August: 20 Books of Summer (Cathy at 746Books)
- August:
- #womenintranslation #WITMonth
- September:
- Short stories in September?
- October:
- 19?? Club Week (Karen at Kaggsy’s Bookish Ramblings, Simon at Stuck in a Book)
- AusReadingMonth (Brona’s Books)
- Black History Month UK
- 19?? Club Week (Karen at Kaggsy’s Bookish Ramblings, Simon at Stuck in a Book)
- November:
- #NovNov – Novellas in November (Rebecca at Bookish Beck, Cathy at 746Books)
- #NonfictionNov – Nonfiction November (Liz at Adventures in Reading, Running and Working from Home + others)
Challenges in practice
If you think this all sounds completely bonkers, it probably is, but it’s really not that complicated in practice. At the start of the month (or if I’m honest, towards the end of the previous month), I list the books that fit my themes for the month. This is made much simpler by the fact that I have all sorts of appropriate tags for my books on Goodreads (or shelves, as Goodreads calls them). Sometimes I put them all together on one shelf, but I’m trying to stop doing that as it’s time-consuming. It does makes it possible to take photos of TBR piles or shelves. And I do so love handling books! As for the reporting on forums and blogging about all these challenges, I’m always behind. It’s 10 o’clock on 1 February and I haven’t posted about my January challenges, NordicFINDS and Japanese Literature yet. C’est la vie!
Market Garden Reader 