Friday, January 2, 2015

Book and Blogging Resolutions: 2015 Edition

The beginning of a new year always brings about reflections on what one would like to see and/or do in the year ahead. While I don't generally make resolutions for the non-reading parts of my life, I enjoy making them for bookish-related things -- even if I don't always keep them. So, without further ado, here are my book and blogging resolutions for 2015 (some of which look remarkably similar to those I posted for 2014):

(1) Read what I want, when I want. As indicated in some of my posts from the latter half of 2014, I suffered from serious (self-inflicted) review fatigue in 2014. This fatigue resulted in the loss of my both my reading and blogging mojo. I was on the verge of giving up on blogging, and I realized that if I didn't stop accepting books for review I'd likely lose my love of reading altogether. The solution was a simple one. I stopped accepting review copies of books, and focused instead only on those books I truly wanted to read at the time I was ready to pick up something new. With no review due dates to stress me out, my enjoyment of reading and blogging has slowly been coming back. I still plan to review books, but these books (with one or two exceptions) will come from my own collection, and the reviews will be posted according to my own schedule. I think this decision will make me a better, happier reader and book blogger.

(2) Focus on my massive TBR pile. 2014 was the year of new releases for me, so 2015 is going to be the year of the TBR pile. So many of my reading choices in 2014 were for new releases that I wondered if I would ever get back to my TBR pile -- which continues to expand, by the way! I have lots of choice on my TBR pile, but here are some of the areas I'd like to focus on:
  • Canadian authors. I have lots of Canadian lit sitting unread on my shelves, and I'd like to move at least some of these unread books into the read category in 2015.
  • Broaden my genre reach. I read a lot of historical fiction, or at least I did until genre fatigue set in last year. I'm getting along with historical fiction again (thank goodness!) but I plan to mix up the genres I read in 2015 so I don't read so much in one genre that I get tired of it. One area I'd like to read more in is non-fiction.  
  • Get back to the classics. I've put off reading the many unread classics I've had on my shelves for years. It's time to tackle some of them!  
I'm not going to stop buying new releases, but they now won't automatically be the go to books for me when I'm looking for my next read.

(3) Increase my blogging presence. Not only do I hope to blog more, but I am going to make a much bigger effort to visit other blogs too, something I wasn't good at in 2014. I love seeing what other people are reading, and what they think of books. I love meme posts and general book-related discussions and want to take a greater part in them, whether through my own posts or visiting and commenting on those of other bloggers.  

So, those are my resolutions. What are yours?


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