Several years ago, I started doing pretty specific reading goals. Last year I moved away from it because it felt a bit constraining and my life was changing. It is continuing to change. But I do like the idea of some reading goals, whether I actually end up following them or not. So here they are:
- Find some more contributors to Bookwi.se, so I can intentionally read some different and longer books. I don’t think I edit myself too much around content, but I do pick up shorter books instead of longer books so I can keep up with a review schedule that no one else really cares about. (If you want to review with Bookwi.se let me know. I have started paying $5 for book reviews, which is just a token since it obviously doesn’t pay for the time to write the review, let alone read the book.)
- Intentionally be adventurous with my reading. 2014, while it had a number of good books, felt more mediocre than normal. And I think that is at least partially because I have not been adventurous enough.
- Read for fun. My friend Rob commented last week that he wished I read more fun stuff like Carey Ewes’ memoir of princess bride instead of another book he was not fond of. And while Rob and I would probably disagree about what I should be reading less of, he is right. I need to be reading more fun stuff. So I picked up three books last night that are all fun or adventurous for me (while they were all on sale).
- I am going to continue with the Scribd subscription for at least the first six months of the year. It is one way for me to be adventurous because it does not require me to buy books that I might hate, I just have to keep the subscription active to try out any of the books.
- I am going to intentionally try to reduce the number of books I read this year. I have a son coming at the end of March, so I will be a stay at home Dad to a newborn and 16th month old come March. It is likely I am going to have less time to read. I was over 180 in 2013, just over 150 in 2014 and probably will be around 120 in 2015.
- As to content goals, I have a tendency to gravitate toward spiritual formation books, but I am going to try to avoid them or at least limit my intake. Spiritual formation is important, but unless I am doing the work to actually change, I need to not be reading the books so I don’t taint my expectations or become moralistic about it.
- I do want to increase my reading on scripture. I tendency is to read about theology, not actually read scripture enough. So again, I am going to try to pay more attention to actually working through the Book of Common Prayer as a way to focus my reading and keep it scripture heavy.
- I want to increase my fiction and fun reading. (I am putting this on the list twice for emphasis.)
- I want to focus my non-fiction reading on biography and history and try to read more primary works and less secondary works.