Top Ten Tuesday was created by The Broke and the Bookish in June of 2010 and was moved to That Artsy Reader Girl in January of 2018. It was born of a love of lists, a love of books, and a desire to bring bookish friends together.
This is the first week that TTT has moved over to Jana’s blog so big congratulations to her on becoming the new host for such a brilliant weekly feature. I’m sure she’s going to be great.
This week’s theme is:
January 16: Bookish Resolutions/Goals
Coincidentally, I just posted my 2018 Reading Goals a few days ago, so I’m going to use my five main goals from there and discuss five other (secret/smaller) goals to make up my ten.
1. Read 80 books
Last year I set my Goodreads goal at 75 books and I just, on the very final day of 2017, managed to meet it. This year, because I like a challenge, I’ve set myself a challenge of 80 books. Wish me luck (I’m going to need it).
2. Read more diversely and support #weneeddiversebooks
The We Need Diverse Movement is a brilliant movement that aims to get Own Voices books and books by marginalised authors in the hands of children and young people. The organisation is doing wonderful things and this year I want to do more to spread the word and support them. I also want to continue reading books written by marginalised authors, with the aim of reading at least one per month.
3. Review more books
Last year, I ended up in something of a reviewing slump and reviewed less half of the books I read. I love writing reviews, so I was pretty disappointed by this. Often, I’ll get comments from fellow bloggers and friends saying they’re interested to hear my thoughts on a book and I love these type of comments, so this year I don’t want to disappoint. This year I want to get more thoughts and review out there.
4. Read more LGBTQIA+ fiction
Continuing my goal from last year, I want to try and read even more books about LGBTQIA+ characters and by LGBTQIA+ authors. I often find books with all-straight characters unrealistic and slightly boring because they don’t reflect real friendships and real life, so I want to more read books with characters of all different orientations. Ideally, I’d like to make this one book per month, the same as my goal for diverse reads.
5. Continue (and possibly finish) manga series that I’ve had on hold for a few years
There are quite a few manga series that I started 5+ years ago and absolutely adored. I still do adore them, but I started reading more fiction again and ended up not finishing many of them. So my fifth reading goal for this year is to finish some of the manga series that I started years ago. At the moment I’m reading Blue Exorcist, but I also plan to try and finish Bleach and Fullmetal Alchemist.
6. Meet up with more of my book blogging pals
Last year, I went to YALC and met up with blogging friends who I’d only previously spoken to online and it was wonderful. I know that I’ve made some friends for life and I love them to bits. This year, I want to meet up with my book pals more and go to more events with them. There’s nothing like chatting books with people who are just as bookish as you are, so this year I’m hoping to go to the West Midlands bloggers meet up in February, YAShot in April, and YALC in the summer. I’m also going to Alwyn Hamilton’s Waterstone’s event in Birmingham later this month, so let me know if you’re also going!
7. Read and review more ARCs and new releases
At YALC in 2017, I managed to pick up some amazing ARCs, but didn’t get round to reading/reviewing them all. This year, I want to make more of a concerted effort to read them in advance, so I can post my reviews the day they’re released. I like to try and keep my blog current, and this is one of the ways in which I want to do this.
8. Continue supporting independent and local book stores
I’m a big fan of independent and second-hand book shops because they have so much personality and individualism, so I always try to shop with them when I can. There are two indies nearby me, and I’m often in and out browsing their titles, and this year I want to continue my support by buying with them instead of online when I can.
9. Read more translated fiction
This was one of my goals for last year, and while I didn’t make it one of my five main goals for this year, it’s still something I’d like to continue doing, to broaden the range of literature I read.
10. Take part in more readathons
My final goal is to take part in more readathons this year! I often see people taking part and logging their progress on twitter, but I always seem to miss the start dateby a day or two. So this year, I’m going to watch out for more fun readathons and make sure to take part in a few. If you’ve got any suggestions for good ones, let me know!
What are your reading goals for this year? How many books are you hoping to read? Are you going to any events or conventions?
coffeeinonehandbookintheother.wordpress.com 
Ahhh these are awesome goals! I can’t wait to hear your thoughts on TBDATE–I so enjoyed reading it!
Thanks my lovely! I’ve actually been taking aaaages to get through TBDATE for some reason. I started it last November and I STILL haven’t finished it. I think it’s mainly because I’ve only got the ebook on my laptop and don’t get to read on it very often through the week. But I recently got a new phone, so I should be able to download the ebook on there and carry on with it. 🙂
I would love to go to YALC this year! I need to do some proper research into prices and stuff though
Ooh I hope you do, it would be awesome to say hi! It’s such a fun event and everyone’s really friendly, so I honestly can’t recommend it enough 🙂
Do you remember how much the tickets were last year? There’s no info up for 2018 yet 🙂
I think it was £52 for the full three days and about £20 per day for a single day. 🙂 Hopefully it’ll be about the same this year!
Ooh okay, that’s not too bad. I will try and keep my eye out for the tickets then because I would love to go!
Yeah, for the full three days and the amount of panels, ARCs, and workshops, it’s pretty good!
Awesome goals!! I bet you will be able to read 80 books no problem. You got this!
Also, for translated books, have you read the Ruby Red series by Kerstin Gier? It is translated from German and I loved it so much when I read it! I actually am hoping to re-read the series again soon!
Thanks Em! I really hope I can read 80 – I’m actually still one book behind at the moment! I haven’t read Ruby Red, what’s it about? (Sounds like it could be fairy tale inspired?)
It’s about a time traveler! I don’t think it’s based off any fairy tales… I do love it though! I’m currently re-reading the series and it’s just amazing as the first few times! I hope you love it if you decide to read it!
Ooh OK, that sounds good! The only reason it made me thing of fairy tales is because red is a colour that features pretty heavily in a lot of them, especially Little Red Riding Hood! 🙂
These are really great goals! They all seem pretty reasonable and I wish you luck with them. Happy 2018!!
Thank you! I’m hoping I can achieve them all in the next 12 months, but I want to prioritise reading LGBTQIA+ books and fiction by marginalised authors. Happy 2018 to you too!
It was very nice to read about your reading goals. I would absolutely love to go to YALC someday, haha. I also want to buy more books offline, but in my country books are so much cheaper on the internet, unfortunately. I am hoping to read 70 books in 2018 and I want to read more diverse books and I also want to discover more classics.
Thanks my lovely! If you get the chance you should definitely come to YALC, it’s so much fun and I can’t recommend it enough. They always have some amazing authors as guests, and there’s lots to do every day. It’s a shame books are more expensive in shops in most countries (that’s the way it is here too, but in second-hand book shops they’re usually cheaper), but if a book is a similar price in store and online, then I try to buy it in the store. 🙂 In the UK, if you check books out from the library, authors also gain a profit from it, so I like to try and do that too. 70 books is a great goal, I hope you get there! What kinds of classics are you hoping to read?
Good luck with these! I’m hoping to take part in more readathons this year too, though I don’t know if I will because of uni. I LOVEEEE the 24 hour ones so much though, so I hope I can! Would you be more likely to take part in shorter ones like that or the week-long sort? 🙂
Thanks Ashleigh! I think the weekly or weekend readathons would suit me best because, with my work and commute, I probably wouldn’t have enough time in 24 hours to read more than one book. 😉 If you see any good ones (of any kind) let me know though and maybe we could both do one!