2024 Intentions
Blogging
As I have said before, I have always tended to think of myself as a reader who blogs rather than just a book blogger. This is shaping how I blogged last year and even more so in this coming year. I will be scaling back the number of books that I will be reading and reviewing this year because of a mini-family crisis that needs some of my attention.
Books
Review Books
I am forever grateful for every single review copy that I receive. I am making a concerted plan to work through all of the review books that I have been sent and much reducing the number that I request still further. That said, I would be delighted to receive some of the books that were on my anticipated list…
My Own Books
I have been cataloguing the books that I have in the past few months, and have found several duplicates, some of which I have passed on and others will be given away on social media channels occasionally. I have passed 2000 books so far and have a growing list of books that I want to read and pass on.
Library Books
I have managed to reduce the number of books that I have out from the library and on one card even got down to half full! But I know that I can do better on this and I am aiming to have only one shelf of library books. I am not that far off achieving this.
Reading Plans
I am fairly happy with the mix of books that I am reading at the moment. I feel that I got the balance right between travel writing and natural history books last year, but as these ake up the bulk of my collection, then I want to read more of them. I also want to read more science fiction and fiction, because, hey, why not? I also have some other intentions detailed below, that whilst not set in stone, I would like to achieve.
Female Authors
I am going to keep my target of reading women authors at 40% for 2024.
BAME Authors
I had my target set to 12 last year and I am going to set the same again for 2024. Slowly more BAME authors are being commissioned in the genres that I like reading, but it is sadly too few still.
Science Fiction & Fantasy
Aiming again to average at least one a month for this. Science fiction is good for expanding the mind and as Terry Pratchett says: Fantasy is an exercise bicycle for the mind. It might not take you anywhere, but it tones up the muscles that can.
Fiction
I don’t read or buy a huge amount of fiction, but I do have a lot around that I have acquired or been sent. This year I am going to make an effort to read at least one fiction book a month. I probably won’t review them, but it depends on the book.
Poetry
I am aiming to read one poetry book a month this year.
Photobooks
I have bought an awful lot of art & photobooks in the past two years and I want to read some of these books next year. Aiming to read at least around six of these in 2024.
Literary Awards
Last year I was a bit better at reading some of the shortlisted books from my favourite prizes (as usual). I did manage to read some from the minor prizes too, but still have a long list of books that I haven’t quite got to read yet… The same list of prizes from last year:
Wainwright
Stanford
Royal Society
Baillie Gifford
Arthur C Clarke
I would like to read some of the winners from other prizes too, including:
The Republic Of Consciousness Prize
Rathbones Folio Prize
Women’s Prize for Fiction
Jhalak Prize
The Portico Prize
Challenges
I quite like book challenges. It is a way of finding new books that you might not have come across before to fit a particular brief. It kind of follows my philosophy of reading widely and reading deeply.
The World From My Armchair Challenge
My ongoing challenge is to read a travel book set in or that passes through every country, sea and ocean in the world. I did really badly at this last year as I only read one book (!!!) for the challenge. Aiming to read at least twelve for this and there will be an update on a blog post sometime in February.
Nature Challenge
There is no challenge this year for the Nature group that I am in so I will roll over the books that I didn’t read to this years reading to complete it.
20 Books of Summer
This is run by the blogger, Cathy of 746 books. I normally sign up to read 20 books and will do so again this summer. Last year was the first time I completed it too!
Other Bookish Stuff
Cataloguing Books
I have started cataloguing my books now. I have catalogued five bookcases and have five more to go, plus the piles that are scattered hither and thither around the house. So far I have 2150 books and actual shelf locations for about half of them. In the end, I decided on a spreadsheet rather than using an app. I have found several duplicates and these have been passed on. Around 10% of my collection is signed too, I hadn’t realised that I had so many books scribbled in by the author.
Spreadsheets
I wrote about this back in 2023 here. I have now made further refinements and will write another post about these changes later in the year. So far these changes seem to be an improvement on what I have used up until now.
Bookshelves
I wrote a blog post showing all my shelves here. I have drawn up a plan for what genre of books that I want on which shelf, and this will be implemented following me reading a clearing out a fair number of books. There will be a mid-stage post later in the year when I have made significant progress on tiding up!
Always interested in what you’re reading given the titles you have available, and then what you think of the book when finished. Sorry to hear, though, that you have a mini-crisis to deal with. Hope that can be sorted soon in a way that works for all.
Thank you, Jackie. It is going to take time.
Sorry to hear about the family crisis and hope it can be resolved smoothly. I’ll be thinking of you all and you know where I am on DMs and email. Keep going with those Global Majority People reads (I’ve just read another Brown Person in Nature book so they are still coming; however at an event I went to recently the two Black participants were pretty convinced the publishing boom will finish soon and revert to normal so we need to keep buying and sharing!). I’ll look forward to a 2024 of more recommendations and interesting reads from you.
Thank you, Liz. It is going to take time and therapy.
I do make a point of not requesting books by GMPs from the publishers, but buying them or getting them from the library.