Reading Goals 2020 Recap

Last year I decided to set reading goals for 2020 not knowing how well I would enjoy having such a comprehensive reading plan. In the past, I would list a few books that I hoped to read and then fill in the rest of my time with prereads for homeschooling plus whatever piqued my interest.

I chose books for two challenges: Modern Mrs. Darcy reading challenge and the Schole Sisters 5x5 challenge, but I double counted, so the same book sometimes appears on both lists.  I kept it realistic by including many juvenile titles on my list that I preread or preview for homeschooling and by choosing very few "challenging" titles. 

And my goals were . . . a huge success! I read more this year than any other year in recent memory thanks to pregnancy, newborn time, a blank calendar, and finally learning how to love reading ebooks (thanks to library closures . . .) And while I absolutely did not read all the titles I had initially chosen for each category, I did manage (through a final hard December push where I finished 5 books) to complete a title in every category that I set out to read.

The best part of any challenge like this is not "winning" at it, but rather discovering new genres and new authors that I will keep coming back to over and over!


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Modern Mrs. Darcy Reading Challenge
This challenge asks you to select books from a variety of categories:
  • A book published the decade you were born / Cat's Eye by Margaret Atwood Howl's Moving Castle by Diana Wynne Jones [Another category I forgot about until the end of November and I needed something "easier." But I'm so glad I switched because I loved this one so much!!!!]
  • A book recommended by a source you trust / America Moves Forward: A History for Peter by Gerald W. Johnson [Recommended by A Delectable Education for history and recently republished by Yesterdays Classics, I chose this for my son's history this year. But FYI, I'm very disappointed by the content in the first volume of the series America is Born regarding Native Americans so we won't be using it even though I bought the whole trilogy]
  • A book in translation / Anna Karenina by Leo Tolstoy [I started Anna Karenina almost 20 years ago and I was so glad I returned to it. I loved it.]
  • A book nominated for an award in 2020 / tbd Interior Chinatown by Charles Yu [2020 National Book Award Winner]
  • A re-read / Hyperion by Dan Simmons [One of my favorite science fiction books of all time and it was fun to reread it right after my husband read it for the first time.]
  • A classic you didn't read in school / Don Quixote by Miguel de Cervantes translated by Edith Grossman [This was the title on my list that I was most dreading/intimidated by, and it was challenging, but I also enjoyed it way more than I thought I would. Having a good, modern translation helped!]
  • Three books by the same author / A Rule Against Murder, The Brutal Telling, Bury Your Dead by Louise Penny [Usually I don't allow myself to read so much, but this year I embraced any healthy self-soothing strategy available to me which included binge-reading "easy" reads like 6 books by Louise Penny and 12 (can that even be correct?) books by Dorothy Sayers]

Schole Sisters 5x5 Challenge
In this challenge, you pick five categories and read five books from each, rereads encouraged. I selected the following categories and books:
Nature
Reading from this category was a life-giving practice for me. I will definitely be choosing more titles from this category to read next year. 

Social Studies (Geography, History, Travelogues)
Literature / Classics
Anna Karenina was my favorite on this list. But I also read Middlemarch by George Elliot which would fit here and I LOVED so much even though it was over 25k pages on my phone. I am going to be focusing more on this category next year.

Speculative Fiction
  • Hyperion by Dan Simmons (ebook on Overdrive/Libby) (reread)
  • The Fall of Hyperion by Dan Simmons (reread)
  • Endymion by Dan Simmons
  • Rise of Endymion by Dan Simmons (I barely finished this as it was quite a slog, but I really wanted to finish this series, even though I only really admire and love books 1 and 2.)
  • Cloud Atlas by David Mitchell I intended to read this but ran out of time! So I am replacing it with another title I read for fun Sundiver by David Brin
                           

In 2019, I read 36 books not counting a few rereads. This year, not counting rereads or books I read to the kids, I read . . . 58 books! I think that is too many. However, books are a better escape for me than some other less healthy habits so I will give myself a pass for 2020. As I mentioned, 12 of them were Dorothy Sayers novels and short stories collections. I also read some Agatha Christie, a handful of science fiction, and all 4 of Rachel and Dave Hollis' "self-help" titles. Hopefully, I'll be a little busier in 2021 spending time with other adults and enjoying experiences outside of our house and outside of our town, and have less time for so much fluffy reading. 

How did your reading plans go this year?
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1 comment:

  1. AflyonmyhomeschoolwallJanuary 2, 2021 at 8:50 AM

    What an amazing list! What an amazing accomplishment!

    I'm borrowing some of your titles for my future reading. :) Thank you.

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