Book Goals for 2016

2015 Book List
2014 Book List
2013 Book List
2012 Book List
2011 Book List


I read 131 books in 2015 and that doesn't include the massive amounts of books I started and read a good chunk of before giving up.  It was overwhelming and tiring and I went through a few big bouts of readers slump along the way, but I managed to make a pretty good dent in some book goals so it was all worth it.  I probably could have made it to 150 if I hadn't hit the slump that lasted from the end of November all the way to the last week of December.

My original big book goal was to do quality over quantity and even though I read more in 2015 than 2014 I still think I read some good quality books.  I managed three of the Game of Thrones books and clicked off quite a few large classics I have been wanting to read.  My Newbery list didn't really get much smaller but I can always keep hammering away on that one pretty quickly since they're all short books.

I wanted to get to War and Peace in 2015 which never happened so that's one I'd like to try for in 2016.  Maybe when I make it through the other two Game of Thrones books I can get to it.

I'd like to try more nonfiction books in 2016.  Every year I say this and every year I'm a little disappointed at how few are on my list.  There's a lot on my TBR shelf so I'm going to make it a point to try and do at least one every couple of months.  I read a lot of historical fiction so even though I didn't read many nonfiction books I did have quite a few books based during WW2 done this year.  It's my favorite historical period so I'm always grabbing the ones I see about it.

My 2016 book goal is going to start at 50 and I'll adjust it later if I think it needs it.  The big classics are what gets me every time.  It took me ages to read Moby Dick because I disliked it so much so I could have read three books in the time it took me to read that one.  Same with a few other classics I disliked.  Usually I'm really good at refusing to finish a book I'm not enjoying but I try to keep going with the big name classics just so I can mark them off as read.

Here are the main lists I use to find books to read:

Newbery Books
Books Everyone Needs to Read

I've also found that it helps if I have a movie or miniseries to watch as I read the story.  It makes it easier to follow along if I read a bit, watch the move up until that point, read some more, then watch a bit again.  They become a lot easier to understand if I have context.  I heard War and Peace is going to be a miniseries sometimes in 2016 so I am planning on recording it and reading as I watch and maybe that will make it easier to go along with.