I have done really well this year. I will end 2018 on 32 books by the end of this week and I am incredibly proud with how much I have read. My original goal was 22 books so I was very happy to beat that goal.
I have 5 areas that I want to complete during 2019. They cover authors, genres and reading challenges. I wanted to plan a bit more for 2019, as this year I just picked up anything I liked and read it. But since then I have started but not finished a lot of series and I have signed up for reading challenges and book subscription boxes. I wanted to approach 2019 in a more organised way.
How many books do I plan to read in 2019?
For 2019, my goal is to read 25 books. I was deciding to possibly aim for 30 but this year I was very fortunate to go on a couple of holidays where I spent a lot of time reading and I was also in college with a lot of free time so I managed to get a lot of reading done between lessons. Now that I have started full-time employment I don’t want to give myself an unachieveable goal.
2019 Sequels
I started a lot of series in 2018 that I was un-able to finish. So on Goodreads, I created a shelf called my 2019 sequels shelf which was dedicated to the sequels to the book series I had started within the year. My plan is to read these books before the month of June, so the first half of the year is dedicated more to finishing or continuing series from 2018 and the 2nd half of the year is dedicated to new series and books. There are twelve books on this shelf and they include;
- The Arm of the Sphinx – Josiah Bancroft (Book 2/4 – The Tower of Babel series)
- The Fellowship of the Ring – J.R.R. Tolkien (Book 2/4, I am counting The Hobbit in this series.)
- The Girl in the Tower – Katherine Arden (Book 2/3 – The Winternight Trilogy)
- Harry Potter and the Goblet of Fire – J.K. Rowling (Book 4/7 – Harry Potter series)
- Legendary – Stephanie Garber (Book 2/3 – The Caraval series)
- The Light Fantastic – Terry Pratchett (Book 2/41 – The Discworld series)
- The Lion, The Witch and the Wardrobe – C.S. Lewis (Book 2/7 – The Chronicles of Narnia)
- The Mermaid’s Voice Returns in this One (Book 3/on-going – The Women Are Some Kind of Magic series)
- Obsidio – Amie Kaufman (Book 3/3 – The Illuminae Files)
- Poirot Investigates – Agatha Christie (Book 3/41 – Hercule Poirot series, not including the new books by Sophie Hannah)
- Resort to Murder – T.P. Fielden (Book 2/on-going – A Miss Dimont Mystery series)
- Thunderhead – Neal Shusterman (Book 2/on-going – The Arc of the Sycthe series)
The ONTD Reading Challenge
On Goodreads, there is a group currently called “2018 ONTD Reading Challenge”. It’s run by two women and they pick a theme for each month of the year and you must follow the theme and read a book each month that fits within the theme. I thought it would be really fun to do this as it means I would read books I would have never thought of picking up. I also tried to apply some of the books from my 2019 sequels list to some of the themes between Jan and June. So I have made a small plan, of books that I could read during the month, and it looks like this:
January – Read a book that has been adapted into a movie or TV show.
- The Light Fantastic (TV episode)
- The Lion, The Witch and the Wardrobe (Movie)
- The Fellowship of the Ring (Movie and TV episode)
- Harry Potter and the Goblet of Fire (Movie)
- Poirot Investigates (Multiple TV episodes)
February – Read a romance or a book in which a couple breaks up.
I am not really a romance fan so the books I looked at all have elements of another genre.
- Obsidio (Sci-fi)
- Cinder – Marrisa Myer (Sci-fi)
- The Night Circus – Erin Morgenstern (Fantasy + Historical Fiction)
- The Seven Husbands of Evelyn Hugo – Taylor Jenkins Reid (Historical Fiction)
March – Read a non-fiction book.
- The Devil in the White City – Erik Larson
- This Is Going To Hurt – Adam Kay
- A Thousand Naked Strangers – Kevin Hazzard
- The World of Lore: Monstrous Creatures – Aaron Mahnke
April – Read a book about time-travel.
- 11/22/63 – Stephen King
- All Our Yesterdays – Cristin Terrill
May – Read a book set in a country you have never been to.
- The Girl in the Tower (Russia)
- Confessions – Kinae Minato (Japan)
- Shadow of the Fox – Julie Kagawa (Japan)
- The Widows of Malabar Hill – Sujata Massey (India)
June – Read a book about friendship.
- Harry Potter and the Goblet of Fire/Order of the Phoenix (I would read OotP if I read GoF earlier in the year.)
- The Fellowship of the Ring/The Two Towers (Same as above)
- Neverworld Wake – Marisha Pessl
July – Read a re-telling.
- Dorothy Must Die – Danielle Paige (The Wizard of Oz)
- The Afterlife of Holly Chase – Cynthia Hand (A Christmas Carol)
- The Child Thief – Brom (Peter Pan)
- Spinning Silver – Naomi Novik (Rumplestiltskin)
August – Read a thriller where a female lead is in danger.
- The Cheerleaders – Kara Thomas
- Sometimes I Lie – Alice Feeney
- Unraveling Oliver- Liz Nugent
- Broken Things – Lauren Oliver
September – Read a comedy.
- Three Bags Full – Leonie Swann
- My Lady Jane – Cynthia Hand
- The Gentleman’s Guide to Vice and Virtue – Mackenzi Lee
October – Read a book about war.
- A Tattooist of Auschwitz – Heather Morris
November – Read a graphic novel/manga.
- From Hell – Alan Moore
- Fullmetal Alchemist – Hiromu Arakawa
- The Prince and the Dressmaker – Jen Wang
December – Read a book that won an award in 2019.
This book I would have to pick closer to the time. These are just books I have in mind that fit the theme, I may decide later to read something else.
Any authors you plan to read more of?
I would love to read some of Brandon Sanderson‘s books. I have heard great things about his work and it seems like the kind of thing I would enjoy.
Any genres you plan to read more of?
I would love to read more classics. It’s probably the only genre I haven’t attempted to read, outside of school. So it would be good to try the genre out.
Link to ONTD Reading Challenge – https://www.goodreads.com/group/show/208213-2018-ontd-reading-challenge
Link to my Goodreads page – https://www.goodreads.com/user/show/45790257-india
IndiaReadsALot 