2025 Reading Goals

 

A new year means new reading goals, sort of. I'm not changing the number of books or pages I want to hit. While I did manage to hit both of those goals last year, I don't feel the need to change them with the new year. While Goodreads calls it a challenge, I see it as a goal I want to complete by the end of the year. I know I hit last year, which means it feels attainable this year. I don't want reading to ever feel like a chore, or feel bad because a month exists where I just don't have the energy or time to read. Reading is something I do to escape pressure, something I do for fun. So, for the second year in a row, I'm aiming to read 70 books this year and 15,000 pages! 

I have come to terms with the fact that neither of us is ever going to clear out a BINGO board. Every single time, we get so close, but we never actually make it all the way. So this year, I'm aiming for three BINGOs. Something I feel I can do, considering I managed four last year. So, it's not out of the realm of possibility, though this year's board has a couple of squares outside my comfort zone. 

This year, I'm adding two new goals to my list. Silent Book Club will be celebrating its second year, so I set myself the goal of attending all twelve events. Considering I'm a co-host of these events, this shouldn't be a hard goal to reach. Of course that all depends on not getting sick or needing to actually work the night of the event.

And of course, the hefty goal of making some sort of dent in my physical TBR. I had a crazy notion of sitting down a getting a spreadsheet of all the unread books I owned, so I could keep track of exactly how big of a dent I was making. Only I know about how many books I own at the moment, and not only is that a daunting, all-day task, I don't think it'll do anything but overwhelm me in the end. So instead I'm going to attempt to keep track of the stacks of physical books I read and in the end dehaul to new homes!

Sometimes you just have to realize buying books and reading books are two different hobbies, and on of those hobbies tends to not think about the limit amount of space your apartment has. 

Back on topic though, I feel like I can finish these goals to some degree. I know the TBR one is a bit of a grey area, but I wanted yearly goals I could complete. Or, at least give a good attempt to at completing. The page count goal is one I don't always hit, so it's the only one I ever really worry about completing. But, I give it a real go every year!

What are some reading goals everyone else is trying to hit this year?

HAPPY READING!!

January Spotlight

 

I didn't realize there was an actual case that inspired the Scarlet Letter. I'm even more interested to see how they use current investigating tools to go back and rework a crime nearly two hundred years ago. I'm actually really exited about this one, for the story itself and the out come.

On a cold winter day in 1832, Sarah Cornell was found hanging in a barn, four months pregnant, after a disgraceful liaison with a charismatic Methodist minister, Reverend Ephraim Avery. Some (Avery’s lawyers) claimed her death was suicide…but others weren’t so sure. Determined to uncover the real story, intrepid Victorian writer Catharine Williams threw herself into the investigation and wrote what many claim is the first American true-crime narrative, Fall River. The case and Williams’ book became a sensation—one that divided the country and inspired Nathaniel Hawthorne’s The Scarlet Letter. But the reverend was not convicted, and questions linger to this day about what really led to Sarah Cornell’s death. Until now.

In The Sinners All Bow, acclaimed true-crime historian Kate Winkler Dawson travels back in time to 19th century small town America, emboldened to finish the work Williams started nearly two centuries before. Using modern investigative advancements—such as “forensic knot analysis” to determine cause of death, the prosecutor’s notes from 1833, and criminal profiling which was invented 55 years later with Jack the Ripper—Dawson fills in the gaps of Williams’ research to find the truth. Along the way she also examines how society decides who is the “right kind” of crime victim and how America’s long history of religious evangelism may have clouded the facts both in the 1830s and today. Ultimately, The Sinners All Bow brings justice to an unsettling mystery that speaks to our past as well as our present, anchored by three women who subverted the script they were given.

    HAPPY READING!!

December Wrap Up

Happy January and Happy New Year! It was a pretty slow reading month, all things considered. Work got busy as the holidays kicked up. Then I decided to get bronchitis, which left me exhausted after work, and my days off were spent mostly sleeping. However, I'm finally on the mend now that meds are doing their thing. I'm excited to kick off a new reading year, same goals of course,, but a new year with a physical TBR that's nearly doubled in this last year! 

Books Read: 6
BINGO Books: 0 

A to Z Challenge: 0

Pages Read: 890

I didn't hit any challenges this month. Most of the books were either audio or Kindle reads, which didn't help my A to Z challenge. None of these books hit the last few squares on my BINGO Board either. 

HAPPY READING!!

Waiting on Wednesday

Can't-Wait Wednesday is a weekly meme hosted by Wishful Endings to spotlight and talk about the books we're excited about that we have yet to read. Generally, they are books that have yet to be released but don't have to be. It is based on Waiting on Wednesday, hosted by the fabulous at Breaking the Spine.

Winifred Notty arrives at Ensor House prepared to play the perfect Victorian governess—she’ll dutifully tutor her charges, Drusilla and Andrew, tell them bedtime stories, and only joke about eating children. But the longer Winifred spends within the estate’s dreary confines, and the more she learns of the perversions and pathetic preoccupations of the Pounds family, the more trouble she has sticking to her plan. Whether creeping across the moonlit lawns in her undergarments or gently tormenting the house staff, Winifred struggles at every turn to stifle the horrid compulsions of her past. When her chillingly dark imagination breaches the feeble boundary of reality on Christmas morning, Winifred is finally ready to deliver on her generous gifts. Wielding her signature sardonic wit and a penchant for the gorgeously macabre, Virginia Feito returns with a vengeance in Victorian Psycho.

Why I'm Waiting: Dudes, creepy children, maybe a haunted house, so much in!

HAPY READING!!