Day #303: New Year and Reading Goals

I've probably said here before that New Year's is a big book holiday for us. My mom started buying us new books for New Year's morning when I was about 8 or 9 and did until she died. I have done it for James since he was a baby so I buy books for the kids, sometimes myself, and even on occasion Daddy. This year was big...found some sales and got excited so the kids each got 3 (including one holiday book apiece, gotta love those after Christmas sales) and I got myself 2, one because I wanted it and one because the wait list for this month's book club book at the library was just too damn long.

Because of that, or maybe because of my mood in general, or likely both, I spent a lot of the New Year with my book journal doing a year end wrap up and stuff like that. 2020 was the first year I ever kept a book journal and ended up being a good first year to start one. It is VERY simple, it's just a monthly calendar and on it I note what I read every day and how many pages, with end of the month totals and star ratings for each book I finished. But it was super interesting to see what I read...not all the picture books the kids and I read together, which all go on goodreads, but just the books that I read for myself. And then I thought about what I want to do next, by which I mean this, year with reading.

The nice thing about reading is that you always have more books to read and are never done. The tough thing about reading is there are always so many books out there and you know you're never going to be able to get to them all. When I first started working in libraries, I wanted to take everything home and read it. There was just so much good stuff. And I did read...a lot...but you can't read everything. It's not possible. And I'd end up with big piles of books in my house and feel overwhelmed. A co-worker of mine said she felt physically hungry when she first started working there, like she wanted to take it all in. At some point she found balance and just started to feel comfortably satisfied. I've never gotten to that point. Maybe I will.

Last year I started with best laid plans. I had a bunch of things on library hold and I was managing my library holds so every month a half dozen or so of my holds would unfreeze and show up for me. I had it all laid out and planned. And then I started to feel overwhelmed. Things would pop up in my Instagram feed that I wanted to read and I didn't know how to add them to an already very full list. I liked what I was reading but ended up feeling very stressed out about what I was missing. Then the libraries closed, which was hard but actually forced me to take a look at what I was doing. Without my meticulous library hold planning I was free to read some I already owned, buy a few, and when the library opened tweak the list. I also had watched the American Library Association give youth media awards to so many books I hadn't read and wanted to do a better job keeping up with especially new children's books coming out. I started reading a lot more middle grade to have an eye on what would be the next year's Newbery contenders. (Side note: middle grade is this weird category book people use that is confusing because it doesn't align with middle school. Middle grade books are widely defined as books aimed at kids about 9-14. There's an overlap there with younger young adult books, which start at age 12.)

I think what I'm starting to realize is keeping a TBR (to be read) list is great, but sticking to it religiously is not. I still have a handful of library holds unfreeze at the end of every month but there's not pressure to read them and I add to/adjust my library holds list all the time. I keep a general TBR list but don't think of it as high pressure and purge it often. The only set in stone list that I have is there are 20 books that I own, a mix of old and new things, that I want to read by the end of the year in order to slowly start to bring the grand total of books I own but haven't read down. 

I really enjoyed keeping a reading log this year and have already started to do it again. I read a ton in 2020 and most of the time was able to let it go and enjoy what I was reading rather than just be pushing on to the next thing and the next thing. And I did read a lot of things that will be in contention for the youth media awards which will be announced January 25. 

Media consumption: yesterday I started the above mentioned book group pick, Memorial by Bryan Washington. It's good writing, but one of the annoying things about being part of a book group is sometimes you read things that are good but you really aren't in the mood for. It's a bit of a downer, not what I would have picked to start 2020. Have a bunch of cozier books to read once I'm done with it. Yesterday I watched a 2008 move called Four Christmases that was decidedly okay. Burnt out and looking for new TV to binge, I found out Hulu has 30 Rock listed as comfort TV, which it for sure is, so I started watching that.

Today I'm grateful for books, libraries, bookstagram, blogging, snuggles, resting, the end of winter break, health, family, and a fresh start.