It's that time of year again! Time for end of the year book round ups! Last year I wrote a post about what books I was most looking forward to reading this year, and what surprised me most when looking back over it is how many of them I didn't actually get around to reading! As the year wore on, they became less and less urgent places on my TBR until they disappeared altogether. 

This year I've decided to do the same the same - write about the books that I hope to read in the coming year, as well as setting a few small goals - but it'll be interesting to see what actually happens by the end of the next year! 

First, the goals. I have three major ones:

Read 75 books...

This year became increasingly busy after launching my business, so I think I'll keep 75 books as my reading goal next year. This number will be challenging (ahem...I say this as I have six more books to read to hit my 75 book goal this year), but I think it's important. I don't use this number as a sort of bragging right. Instead, I set these goals to remind myself that there are better things to do than do my commute or come home in the evening and scroll on my phone as I half-watch a Netflix show. I feel so much more nourished when I sit down and get taken on a journey led by good writing. 

Shop my own shelves...

I have a bad habit of buying books when they're on sale and then...POOF!...into the e-reader they go, where I promptly forget all about them. So this year, instead of focusing on amassing more books, I'm going to try to shop my own shelves more. I've made a master list of all the titles I own and haven't read, so it'll be easy to figure out what I might want to dig into each month. Hopefully by relying more on books from the list, I can clear some items from my very VERY long standing TBR! This is also tying into a longer desire to do a low buy year, which I'll also write more about later.

DNF earlier and more frequently...

I'm not gonna lie, I feel like I had a fairly disappointing reading year. I'll write more about this in another post, but when I was compiling my favorite books of the year, I think there were only three that immediately sprang to mind as being amazing reads. The rest of the were good or fine, but there were very few absolutely stellar reads. I think part of the reason for this might be because I don't ditch books early enough, or often enough. So this year I'm going to do a little experiment - will I end up with measurably a better reading year if I DNF more?

A now for the books I'm most looking forward to reading in the first few months of 2022...

A Desolation Called Peace - Arkady Martine

How I never got around to this, I don't know. A Memory Called Empire was favorite book of 2019 and I was so looking forward to reading this follow up and *farty balloon sound* So I'll reattempt it this year, but I may have to read the first book again to remember everything that happened.

Shorefall: Foundryside Book 2 - Robert Jackson Bennett

I really enjoyed the first book of this series, and am looking forward to continuing the story with the next book in the series. This is a book I'll need to purchase.

The Sea of Tranquility & a re-read of Station Eleven - Emily St. John Mandel

Emily St. John Mandel wrote what was probably my favorite read this year - The Glass Hotel - so I was excited to see that she's coming out with another book next year. I just adore her writing, and am excited to see if The Sea of Tranquility links back to the other two books (I have a feeling they do).  I own Station Eleven, but Sea of Tranquility isn't coming out until next year, so it's one that I'll need to purchase when it does.

Some badass female SF writers that I'm less familiar with - Nagata, Cherryh, Leckie and more LeGuin

Last year I read some big names in classic SF - Nivens, Herbert (re-read), Watts - but they were almost all men. It's time to give the women a little more attention this year. I've read some LeGuin, but want to read more. And Nagata, Cherryh and Leckie are all writers I've been wanting to explore and have heard very good things about. I already have books by them in the library, so this will also adhere to my desire to shop my own shelves.

And that's all! I'm excited about this coming year of reading and hopeful that I can reach my goals. Do you have any reading goals for 2022? What are they?