My 2024 Reading Goals

And a few writing goals too

I’ve been pondering what I want my reading life to look like in 2024 and what, for me, would feel like a good reading year. The words that keep on coming back to me are depth and variety. As you’ll see into my goals, I want to dive further into authors I love but I also want my reading to feel expansive when it comes to genre, authors, and the experiences represented on the page. I am setting goals but I also want my reading to feel free. I’m hoping for a sense of exploration and curiosity this year and for reads that surprise me at every turn.

My goals include:

1. More author projects

   One of my favorite reading experiences last year was my Eve Babitz summer, where I read Slow Days, Fast Company, LA Woman, and Eve’s Hollywood. I loved seeing how Babitz’s themes are refracted throughout her work and how her writing evolved over the course of her career. This year, I want to dive more into the backlist of authors I love. I’m planning to focus on Louise Erdrich and Maggie O’Farrell and read at least three books from each. (Hopefully more from Erdrich, who’s wonderfully prolific.) I’m also circling the idea of doing an Ursula K. Le Guin project. My boyfriend’s been reading through her backlist and raving about it, so I’m intrigued.

2. Reading from my shelves

   I own an embarrassing amount of unread books. I haven’t counted—I’m a little afraid of what the number might be—but my apartment has many a book pile. And these are all books that I was excited about when I bought them! I really want to make a dent in my shelves this year, discover some backlist gems, and be better at reading books soon after I acquire them.

3. Back away from the buzz (a little bit)

   This is a tricky one. I’m very much the kind of person who wants to have an opinion on the books of the moment but I also sometimes feel like I see the same titles over and over again on the bookish Internet. I want to spend more time reading books that not everyone is talking about and championing the lesser known titles that I love. I especially want to do this with romance and possibly write a few under-the-radar romance round-ups.

4. Read more nonfiction than I did in 2023

   According to Storygraph, I read one nonfiction book in 2023 so this is an easy goal to achieve but there’s nothing wrong with an easy goal or two. I already own a few nonfiction titles that I want to get to: Ninth Street Women by Mary Gabriel, The Season by Kristen Richardson, and Everything I Need I Get From You by Kaitlyn Tiffany.

5. Quit Goodreads for good

   I’ve deleted the app from my phone. I’ve resisted the urge to set a Goodreads Reading Challenge for this year and haven’t logged a single book on it. After years of feeling vague frustration every time I log on and dealing with Goodreads’ dogged determination to avoid improving their interface at every turn, I will completely switch over to only using Storygraph to track my reading online and it will feel so good.

6. Read more widely and diversely

   I want to focus on reading more translated and international fiction, more romance set outside the US and UK, and more new-to-me authors. I’m also continuing my quest for historical romance set outside 19th century England (part two of this post coming? hopefully?).

And two big writing goals:

1. Sign with a literary agent

   This is the huge, terrifying, thrilling one. I’m currently in the midst of querying my novel, a contemporary irritated-to-lovers romance set behind the scenes of a reality dating show, and it’s nerve-wracking but also full of a wonderful sense of possibility.

2. Get my current draft of book two to a place where I feel comfortable sending it to beta readers

   I wrote book two before the novel I’m currently querying, all the way back in late 2020 to early 2021, and that first draft is messy. But it also represents when I threw myself back into original writing and I’m looking forward to revising and turning it into the book I know I can be. (Will I feel like this when I’m staring at Scrivener typing and deleting the same sentence five times in a row? Probably not. But I have to hang on to the feeling where I can.)

Let me know your 2024 reading intentions and goals in the comments!

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Currently reading: Still Fourth Wing by Rebecca Yarros. Work sort of swallowed my life this past week. I also actually paused Fourth Wing about 120 pages in, read something else, surveyed my friends about whether I should keep going, received the advice that I should at least get to the dragons, and dove back in Wednesday night. Things do pick up considerably once the dragons get involved.

What’s bringing me joy lately:

• As you may have noticed, I’m a big movie fan and I saw both American Fiction and Poor Things last weekend, both of which are highly discussable and anchored by excellent ensembles. I’m creeping ever closer to my long dreamed-of goal of seeing all 10 Best Picture nominees, although I’ll have to see what I’m missing when the nominations finally get announced.

• The epic highs and lows of men’s figure skating, in the form of the men’s free skate at Europeans. Heartbreak! Triumph! Illegal backflips! A cowboy themed program that features both “Cotton Eye Joe” and horse noises!

• At long last, my order from Super Yaki’s Princess Diaries-themed collection has arrived and as a child of the early 2000’s, I am overjoyed.