Looking forward to 2019: plans, challenges?

[Lizzie]

I too would like to make a dent in my physical TBR pile, although I haven't been adding much to it recently since one of my favourite second hand bookshops closed. My Kindle 99p purchases have spiralled out of control again as a result! There are a couple of YA series on my Kindle that I have been meaning to get around to, so I might try to focus on those for the first part of the year interspersed with books off the pile on top of the bookcase. OR - I might just continue reading Brandon Sanderson ALL THE TIME! hehe :D

[Alondra]

Lizzie wrote: "I too would like to make a dent in my physical TBR pile, although I haven't been adding much to it recently since one of my favourite second hand bookshops closed. My Kindle 99p purchases have spir..."

Ugh, I hate when that happens. So sorry.

[Lizzie]

Alondra wrote: "Ugh, I hate when that happens. So sorry. "

Thank you - there is something really special about browsing a second hand bookstore I think, partly because you never know what you're going to find!

[Anthony]

An additional goal I have for 2019 is to continue making my way through both The Big Book of Science Fiction and each of the late Gardner Dozois’s 35 Year’s Best anthologies. I’m currently in the middle of the 3rd Annual Collection. I very much enjoy reading shorter fiction between novels.

[Mareike]

Anthony wrote: "An additional goal I have for 2019 is to continue making my way through both The Big Book of Science Fiction and each of the late Gardner Dozois’s 35 Year’s Best anth..."

Now, that sounds daunting especially the number of anthologies Dozoi has edited. Though that might also be colored by the fact that I tend to prefer novels over short stories.
Still, I might have to get that Big Book of Science Fiction eventually. It looks like a must-have.

[Bobby]

Two of my biggest goals can kind of be combined into one. There were several series that I have started a re-read for in the last 2 years, and haven't finished them. I've gotten 4-7 books in to each of them, and then got distracted by the new shiny thing. The second goal comes in because there are now new books in those series, so I also need to continue series I haven't finished.

I'm on the 8th book in the Wheel of Time which is the only one I've read completely. I'm on book 6 of the Emberverse series by S.M. Stirling, and I've read 8 originally, but there are 14 total books so far. I'm on the 2nd book of the 2nd trilogy in the Realm of the Elderlings, but I haven't read the latest trilogy. I'm on book 4 of The Malazan Book of the Fallen, and even though it's one of my favorite series ever, I have never gotten around to the 10th book, much less the spinoffs that are now out. I just happened to take a break from reading as much when the 9th book came out, and never got around to picking up the 10th when it was released 2 years later. By the time I was ready, it had been a long time and I wanted to wait until I could re-read and refresh my memory. I also kind of don't want it to end so I've been procrastinating.

So my main goal next year is to start those re-reads up again, and finally get on to the new books in these series. I don't really expect to finish the re-reads and new reads for all 4 of those massive series, but I will make sure I at least advance a book or two in all of them and maybe finish off 1 or 2 of them.

The only other thing I've got planned is just to continue on with this group like I've done this year. Join challenges, discuss the monthly reads I'm interested in, and do a ton of buddy reads.

[Jacqueline]

My goals are to not have any goals other than to surpass this years books read (which so far is 77 and my goal was 52). And read whatever it is that Trike does write....I'll let you know where to send the ARC when the time comes. I don't intend on writing any books.

This year (my first back reading again) I was doing the Popsugar and AtY challenges and I'm nearly finished both of them but I don't really like having to actually read something I'm not in the mood for. I'm still going to be a member of those groups though because they've steered me onto some great books. And I might even have a go at trying to plan for the challenge but I probably won't go much further.

Doing those challenges this year has made me a little more eclectic in my reading though I must say. There are so many books they brought to my attention that there is no way I would have read by myself.

Next year I want to concentrate more on SFF with a few others thrown in so that means definitely staying here and also still being a member of another Fantasy group that finds some of the best stuff. Basically I have one full bookcase of unread SFF and the other one is half contemporary and half murder mystery/spy with half a shelf of non fiction.

[Karin]

I am not thinking about 2019 reading yet, nor about Christmas. I am getting through this fall and also thinking about my kids' FAFSA applications and all of our schedules for 2019. I am nearly ready to think about Thanksgiving.

[Alondra]

Lizzie wrote: "Alondra wrote: "Ugh, I hate when that happens. So sorry. "

Thank you - there is something really special about browsing a second hand bookstore I think, partly because you never know what you're g..."

Exactly! I have 3 or 4 in Charlotte that I can depend on to have books. One does better with Sci-Fi and Fantasy; another with mysteries, fiction and old Sci-Fi, and one with obscure books. Then I hit all the Goodwill stores in between. Gotta keep my options open. LOL

[Allison, Fairy Mod-mother]

Karin wrote: "I am not thinking about 2019 reading yet, nor about Christmas. I am getting through this fall and also thinking about my kids' FAFSA applications and all of our schedules for 2019. I am nearly read..."

Ha! I relate with this so much.

[Ine]

My TBR pile doesnt stress me at all, its just a virtual list of Neat Books, the bigger it is the better, so Ill never run out of books to read! So no TBR challenge for me.

Actually I have never done any reading challenge at all, so this coming year I want to start with getting an overview, how many books can I even read in a year? How many books are by white or non-white people? Female authors? Male ones or NB ones? How many are SF and how many Fantasy?

Also during my last vacation I was very distracted by my mobile phone, next vacation I will only turn it on in an emergency!

[Bobby]

Ine wrote: "My TBR pile doesnt stress me at all, its just a virtual list of Neat Books, the bigger it is the better, so Ill never run out of books to read! So no TBR challenge for me.

Actually I have never do..."

Thanks Ine, I forgot to mention my new outlook for my TBR list, and this reminded me. At first I treated it just as a list of things I wanted to get to eventually, and then somewhere along the way I started to think I needed to read every one as soon as possible. I realized that isn't possible, so I let it go. Now, I'm back to using the TBR as a reminder when I don't know what to read. Instead of doing the research right then, I've already done it for myself.

With that said, I will be happy to expand it as much as possible, but I still love the TBR challenge just for the fun of it, even if I add more books than I take off. It's good for it to be an ever changing list.

[Beth]

Ine wrote: "Actually I have never done any reading challenge at all, so this coming year I want to start with getting an overview, how many books can I even read in a year? How many books are by white or non-white people? Female authors? Male ones or NB ones? How many are SF and how many Fantasy?

Also during my last vacation I was very distracted by my mobile phone, next vacation I will only turn it on in an emergency!"

A couple of years ago I decided I wouldn't read anything by white men. And at the end of the year found that 2/3 of what I read was by white women. Embarrassing. I'm thinking of using the 12+4 challenge mentioned earlier to read more diversely both genre- and author-wise.

Vacations are a great time to make progress on longer books, and some of my strongest book memories are of what I was reading during this or that vacation. I need to stay away from that darn phone, too!

[M.L.]

I have a goal of reading a book by an author who has over 3K posts in this group. :)

I'm also going to read at least three from the list of SFWA Grand Masters who are not on the shelves in this group. That list is in the nomination discussion.

[Allison, Fairy Mod-mother]

Beth wrote: "Ine wrote: "Actually I have never done any reading challenge at all, so this coming year I want to start with getting an overview, how many books can I even read in a year? How many books are by wh..."

I'm a little nervous about my Malazan challenge for this reason. I am soooo close to having women/NB on my read shelf be equal to the number of books by men and now I'm gonna be reading a year of books by men! Plus, even being cognizant of the divide, our group does tend to pick more majority authors, so that's another avenue of reading that won't help me balance out. And I've read so many amazing books this year by authors I might not have found had I not been actively looking for them, I'm loathe to stop that adventure.

Hoping I can come up with a satisfactory way to juggle all that.

I don't ever think I'll "finish" my TBR books, but I do like to keep it low--I want it to be full of books I'm actually hopeful to read, not just anything that sounded vaguely interesting. 1000s of books on a shelf stress me out.

[Anthony]

@Allison I’ve only been in this group since July but out of 10 group reads in the past 5 months, 5 have been by women, and 5 have been by people of color. That seems like an encouraging trend in the group voting dynamics...

[Allison, Fairy Mod-mother]

Anthony wrote: "@Allison I’ve only been in this group since July but out of 10 group reads in the past 5 months, 5 have been by women, and 5 have been by people of color. That seems like an encouraging trend in th..."

Yeah! We have been...subtly encouraging finding new voices, especially since we're at 30% women authors in our shelves :) There's a couple threads on gender and race and our reading if anyone is interested in diving more into the statistics/reasoning for trends like this. Not that we are opposed to majority voices of course! Please don't let that be the takeaway. We just want to make sure our SciFi and Fantasy encompass the whole world (or worlds as the case may be!)

[M.L.]

The next part of the constantly-evolving plan is to read Gaiman's Norse Mythology and be on the lookout for a Lit RPG. And space pirates. These all sound interesting.

[Barry]

My SFF related goals for 2019:

1. Definitely finish Malazan BOTF
2. Try to read 4-6 joint Hugo-Nebula winners
3. Decrease my TBR to below 35 (currently at 62) by doing a 3-to-1 book buying challenge
4. Maintain incomplete series to under 10 series (currently at 7)

[Soo]

M.L. wrote: "The next part of the constantly-evolving plan is to read Gaiman's Norse Mythology and be on the lookout for a Lit RPG. And space pirates. These all sound interesting."

If you want any recs for LitRPG or space pirates, just ask. =)

[Anna]

I'll definitely try to talk Allison into doing space pirates as a theme later in 2019! It's the theme I had most options for ready to go :D

[Alondra]

Barry wrote: "My SFF related goals for 2019:

1. Definitely finish Malazan BOTF
2. Try to read 4-6 joint Hugo-Nebula winners
3. Decrease my TBR to below 35 (currently at 62) by doing a 3-to-1 book buying challen..."

I love seeing folks with low TBRs, showing dedication by knocking off those books.

What do I do with my 2641??? I think, sir, that I am beyond help.

Kudos to you for having discipline!! LOL

[Gabi]

@Alondra: Whew! That's a number! Perhaps you can start with getting rid of the 41 to have a nice round number ;-)?


Since the discussion about female/male coloured/white authors came up in previous posts I sorted the books I've read since I joined this group - and I came up with a completely different conclusion for next year: I want to read more authors that are neither from the US or GB. Only 15% of the authors I read this year were from another country.

[Allison, Fairy Mod-mother]

A great goal, Gabi!

[Leticia]

In the next months and 2019 I plan a six months ban on buying books, I have too many already on my shelf that need reading :-)

[Trike]

I can’t find a thread which breaks down our reads by race and/or gender. I know it’s been talked about within threads.

As far as that goes I’m doing okay in 2018. My 2019 TBR looks to be comprised mostly of white men, though.

[Bobby]

Trike wrote: "I can’t find a thread which breaks down our reads by race and/or gender. I know it’s been talked about within threads.

As far as that goes I’m doing okay in 2018. My 2019 TBR looks to be comprised..."

There was a half year progress report type of thread where a lot of people mentioned how many books they read by race and/or gender.

[Anthony]

@Trike are you talking about our individual reads or the group’s official monthly selections? I find those sorts of stats to be very interesting. And I’m encouraged by the fact that this year’s officially-voted-upon group reads are well distributed between women and men, with quite a few writers of color in the winning column as well.

[Allison, Fairy Mod-mother]

I know what we're getting everyone for [insert your preferred year-end gift giving excuse]!

[Anna]

Based on the quality of the gift, everyone's been very naughty this year.

[Allison, Fairy Mod-mother]

Anna wrote: "Based on the quality of the gift, everyone's been very naughty this year."

Guilty! ;-)

No, I'll make it pretty, not at all like the Mickey Mouse incident. It'll look like a present and not like a bright veneer on the grim truth.

[Anna]

Haha, I'm more worried about the contents than the presentation. We should at least include a box of tissues and an emergency chocolate bar with the miserable thing.

[M.L.]

Soo wrote: "M.L. wrote: "The next part of the constantly-evolving plan is to read Gaiman's Norse Mythology and be on the lookout for a Lit RPG. And space pirates. These all sound interesting."
…
If you want any recs for LitRPG or space pirates, just ask. =) "

Hi Soo, Yes, that would be appreciated. Look forward to your recommendations. Thanks!

[Anna]

Let's please post all recs in the recs folder, so everyone can find them even if they don't read this thread!

[M.L.]

Anna wrote: "Let's please post all recs in the recs folder, so everyone can find them even if they don't read this thread!"

Great idea, thanks!

[M.L.]

Anna wrote: "Let's please post all recs in the recs folder, so everyone can find them even if they don't read this thread!"

Posted. Thank you!

[Alondra]

Gabi wrote: "@Alondra: Whew! That's a number! Perhaps you can start with getting rid of the 41 to have a nice round number ;-)?


Since the discussion about female/male coloured/white authors came up in previou..."

bwahahhaha…. I know, right!!! What makes it so sad, is that, I do that at least once or twice a year. I go through the entire list and try to figure out if I really want to read it or is it something I "should" read. The should's have to go. :)

[Alondra]

Leticia wrote: "In the next months and 2019 I plan a six months ban on buying books, I have too many already on my shelf that need reading :-)"

I did that and it worked wonders. Of course, I bought another bookshelf to relieve the double-stacked shelves.... o_O

I limited myself to 5 books per quarter for a full year. I only cheated at the end of the year. LOL

[Barry]

Alondra wrote: "Barry wrote: "My SFF related goals for 2019:

1. Definitely finish Malazan BOTF
2. Try to read 4-6 joint Hugo-Nebula winners
3. Decrease my TBR to below 35 (currently at 62) by doing a 3-to-1 book ..."
I feel your pain. I know someone who claims her tbr-owned books are more than 300.

Btw, I sort of cheated with my tbr-owned number ... a little bit. So, a few months ago I was doing (super late) spring cleaning in August (😅) and found out I’ve too many physical books at my apt without enough storage space. So, I chose which ones I was still interested and packed the ones I wasn’t interested anymore. I think there were at least 20ish books that I wasn’t interested anymore.

The kindle daily deals also gave me some problems. Seeing those $1.99 deals just made me so itchy to click buy, regardless my level of interest. In fact I failed my book buying challenge within 15 days of starting because of those daily deals. I just failed again yesterday when Oathbringer was on sale.

I guess you just gotta keep trying to reduce that number and be discipline. But take it easy. As long as you’ve got space to store all those unread books you’re ok I guess.

[Alondra]

Barry wrote: "Btw, I sort of cheated with my tbr-owned number ... a little bit. So, a few months ago I was doing (super late) spring cleaning in August (😅) and found out I’ve too many physical books at my apt without enough storage ..."

That's honest cheating....oxymoron I know, but sometimes we forget or get distracted. Right??

Anyway, the kindle deals are awesome, but the freebies are even better!!

I have tons of space... new book shelf. :)

[Mareike]

Gabi wrote: "@Alondra: Whew! That's a number! Perhaps you can start with getting rid of the 41 to have a nice round number ;-)?


Since the discussion about female/male coloured/white authors came up in previou..."

Yes! I haven't run the numbers yet for my reading this year, but I know it's skewed towards the US and GB as well as other dominant categories.
If there's an inclusive book bingo again next year, I'll definitely participate more in that.

[Trike]

Bobby wrote: "Trike wrote: "I can’t find a thread which breaks down our reads by race and/or gender. I know it’s been talked about within threads.

As far as that goes I’m doing okay in 2018. My 2019 TBR looks t..."

There was a half year progress report type of thread where a lot of people mentioned how many books they read by race and/or gender.

Anthony wrote: "@Trike are you talking about our individual reads or the group’s official monthly selections? I find those sorts of stats to be very interesting. And I’m encouraged by the fact that this year’s off..."

The closest thread I’ve found is “SFF By Nonwhite/Nonmajority Authors”: https://www.goodreads.com/topic/show/...

Also “Speculative Fiction and Race”: https://www.goodreads.com/topic/show/...

And of course, “”Are We Sexist?", Two - Discussion, Resources, and Author Suggestions”: https://www.goodreads.com/topic/show/...

I don’t know which thread is best suited for a discussion specifically breaking down our reading history/habits/intentions.

[Meredith]

I found that discussion thread of mid-year updates:

https://www.goodreads.com/topic/show/...

[Allison, Fairy Mod-mother]

I know Are We Sexist has a bunch of stats on gender lines. I'm not sure we'd done that for Spec Fic and Race. I'd say either would be good for discussion of our reading habits, though obviously if it swings away from the intersections and heads (heatedly) into one more than the other, I'd likely ask we split up the conversation.

[Meredith]

My 2019 reading goals
I'll definitely do the Goodreads challenge (and probably start with a goal of 50 that I bump to 75, like I have the past couple years).

I've also really enjoyed the reading challenges +discussions in this group. So, I'll do the TBR, Read All the Books, and any kind of Owned Books challenge, then see what else looks good to jump in on.

My more general goals include making progress on series, read non-fiction, read short stories/novellas. I may try and attach some numbers to those goals when I get closer to the end of the year.

My big goal (same as for this year) is to just simply read more books than I buy. I might make it this year.

In terms of the discussion of fixing the skew in our reading, I most definitely need to read more authors of color. Most of the books in my TBR are by white authors, so I'll have to work on this with targeted acquisitions.

[Silvana]

Lately I find reading novels that I don't like and having to DNF them to be annoying and wasting my time so I now plan to increase my short fiction especially short stories and novelettes read to 40 or maybe 50 next year. I would reach around 30 this year, which is around 1/3 of the amount of novels read. Alternatively, I could do a 50:50 quota. Let's see how it goes. At least for these short stuff I could actually finish them and most are free anyway.

[Beth]

Barry wrote: "The kindle daily deals also gave me some problems. Seeing those $1.99 deals just made me so itchy to click buy, regardless my level of interest. In fact I failed my book buying challenge within 15 days of starting because of those daily deals."

"Reading more than I buy" has never happened for me. Any attempt for a 2-for-1 system leads to binge buying in a matter of weeks. Ebook sales do not help at all, but since you can buy four or five of them for the price of a new paperback, and they take up no room, I don't feel as guilty about them.

In 2018 about half of my reading was backlog rather than new purchases, and I had a great time and none of them felt like an obligation, so maybe my mind is finally starting to change. I want to explore our local library too--plenty of potential there to get me out of the consumerist rut I've been wallowing in for far too long. I could set myself a mini-challenge to read (or listen to) more library books next year! :)

[Lowell]

So, given that there are 35 days left in 2018, I am starting to think about what I want to read in 2019, and how I want to accomplish that.

for 2018, I used the group's fifth season challenge and pre-selected a dozen books to go for. I also looked at what was coming out over the course of the year, and chose a few books that were "backlogged" and made a shelf for all of these.

That gave me about 25 books for my yearly TBR pile. As of this writing, I've still got 1 book from the planned reading that I'm in the middle of, 2 books I haven't started yet, and the rest are done.

One of my big deals for 2018 was that I wasn't going to re-read anything after I finished my go at Stormlight Archive. I have sort-of broken that, in that I've read aloud some books to my child that I've already read. (The Hobbit, Harry Potter and the Sorcerer's Stone).

Because of the tyranny of ongoing subscriptions, I have several audiobooks I haven't listened to, as well as a significant number of kindle-bought deals that I have never read.

So taking all of this into consideration... I'm debating if I allow myself re-reads this year (sometimes, you just want some comfort food re-reads. Like the Dresden Files), or if I need to do another year of hardcore new-only. I also started several series this year by reading the first book, and can go read the remainder of the series (Book of the New Sun, Remembrance of Earth's past, Dandelion Dynasty).

--------------

Copied from a thread I started because I missed this one

[Allison, Fairy Mod-mother]

That's a lot of options! I tend to pick something that feels important to me, a habit I want to start or a goal I want to reach for my own personal achievement awards. So, 2 years ago I did "new to me authors everyone keeps talking about" and this year was "greater representation." Now that those are firmly in my mind, I want to continue those practices, but I'm also ready to tackle a hefty series. Wheel of Time didn't work, here's hoping Malazan does!

[Lowell]

I crashed and burned the two times I tried to start on Malazan. I found the first bit of Gardens of the Moon to be incomprehensibly boring.

*shrug* I may just be done with "epic fantasy" at this point. (he says, while patiently awaiting The Winds of Winter and considering continuing The Dandelion Dynasty)