My Reading Goals for 2021

Like many of you, I am thinking of the reading goals I want to accomplish in 2021. Usually I keep my reading goals fairly simple and easy to complete. However, this year I want to up the ante by having multiple goals going on at the same time. Will this backfire on me? Possibly, but I am confident that having a lot of goals might actually allow me to accomplish them. I’m thinking in retrospect of my time in university. There was a ton of reading I had to do every day, yet I still accomplish most, if not all of it. I think by adding more goals, and ticking everything off like a list, I could get a lot of great reading done this year. I can only hope.

For 2021, these are my goals:
1. Reading more of my backlist books before buying more books.
I own a lot of books that I haven’t read yet, some I’ve had since elementary school. This is not good, and it’s something I want to quickly change. I don’t want to add more unread books to my shelves before cutting down on my unread books.

2. Read as many Giller Prize winning books as I can
As stated in my blog post, I want to read all of the Giller Prize winning novels. I would like to read as many as I can this year to get a head start on it. I’ll definitely not read all of them this year, but getting through a handful of them would be great.

3. Read every work written by Shakespeare that I haven’t already
I really enjoying reading Shakespeare, so I thought it would be a fun idea to read everything he’s ever written. It’s a large task to take up, however all of his plays and poems can easily be read in one sitting.

4. Read at least 2 500+ page books
As I make my reading goals every year, I always neglect my larger books because they usually take too much time to read. However, if I keep doing this, I will only have large books left unread on my shelf. So to start this goal off, I’m reading Anna Karenina by Leo Tolstoy

5. Read 45 books (more if possible)
Last year I read 45 books, so I’m just using this number as a general goal. If it’s more or less, that’s fine. I just want to read as much as I can, and actively make sure I’m choosing to read other than scrolling through various apps.

6. Buy more from local booksellers
One thing I don’t want to see happen in the upcoming year is for independent bookstores to become obsolete. When I used to live in downtown Toronto, I would frequent the independent and used bookstores like most people frequent their local mall. After class, you could bet I was there with a cup of Tim Horton’s coffee. Since I can’t do that right now, I want to support local bookstores, and focus on that for this year.

What are your reading goals for the new year? Do you have any goals that you’re bringing to 2021 that you didn’t accomplish in 2020?

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