2020 Reading Goals!

I know two months have already passed, but I thought I’d make a post talking about my 2020 reading goals. Because of my uni work, I’m not making so much progress with reading for fun this term, but after April I’m hoping my speed will really pick up for a few months to make up for the lack of reading in the first couple of months of the year.

My overall target this year is to read 70 books. So far, I’ve finished 5 books.
1. Solar – Ian McEwan
2. No One Is Too Small To Make a Difference – Greta Thunberg
3. The End of the Ocean – Maja Lunde
4. Labyrinths – Jorge Luis Borges
5. Four Stories – Alan Bennett.
I’ve linked to those I’ve reviewed, and you can find mini-reviews for the others on my bookstagram, ells.library.

Within my 70 books, I really want to read more diverse authors. So far, three of the five books I’ve read have been by people who’s first language isn’t English, and two are female. I’m hoping to read a good mix of books this year. My plans are to fill the gaps in my knowledge of the English canon, reading a bit of H.G. Wells and the Bronte sisters and similar famous authors, but then to also read some much more contemporary fiction, particularly translated contemporary fiction.

I don’t like to plan my reading too much, because I never know what books I might stumble across. I do have several books on my 2020 Reading Goal list though. I won’t bore you going through all 40 on the list, but I’ll pick out the next ten books I want to read.

1. The Time Machine – H.G. Wells.
2. Flowers for Algernon – Daniel Keyes
3. The Buried Giant – Kazuo Ishiguro
4. Night Sky with Exit Wounds – Ocean Vuong
5. Patient X: The Case-Book of Ryunosuke Akutagawa – David Peace
6. Arkady – Patrick Langley
7. Counternarratives – John Keene
8. On Beauty – Zadie Smith
9. The Little Friend – Donna Tartt
10. Wuthering Heights – Emily Bronte

I’ve really enjoyed the books I’ve read so far this year, and the ones on my Next Up list are all ones I’ve heard a lot of good things about! Alongside these ten books, I’m going to be doing some short story reading for my university work, and I’ll also be reading critical essays and theory to help me preparing for the MA course I hope to be starting in September.

If I can pick up the pace of reading, I’ll be back to a review every week. I’m intending to have my book posts going up on Saturday afternoons, and my lifestyle posts on Wednesday afternoons. I might also occasionally post on a Monday: I’m planning to start reviewing things other than books, and I might do a favourites series as well, so those kinds of posts will go up on Mondays, if I’ve written something that week.

This post has been a bit shorter than my usual, but I hope it’s been interesting to see what I’m planning to read, and it’ll give you a bit of a taste of the kinds of reviews that’ll be being posted. Let me know what you’re planning to read next in the comments!