We’re officially over a week into 2019 and I haven’t shared my reading goals yet. I mean, I’m still way ahead of last year (when I posted them the second week into February) but you know, there is a time and a place and it’s now.
And speaking of a time and place for a post – I know I haven’t gotten my Best Books Of 2018 post up yet but I’ll hopefully have that going up by the end of the week, in some form. I can’t decide how I want to do it just yet. We’ll see what I end up going with, I guess. xD
But anyway, back to today’s post! I really liked having goals set up for myself last year and I’m hoping having them again this year will motivate me to complete as many as possible. Nothing quite like stating publicly what you want to get done!

Read 65 Books

As every year, I like to start off my reading goals with the number of books I want to read for the year and 2019 is no different – well, minus the fact that I’m being quite ambitious with my initial goal of reading 65 books.
Usually, I’ll set my reading goal at 50 books and then just see how I do throughout the year. I’ve upped my goal in the past or lowered it, depending on how I was doing and whether or not Goodreads was stressing me out. Which, spoiler alert: has already happened.
I didn’t realize that in order to finish 65 books in 2019 I’d have to read more than a book per week and we’re already into week 2 and until last night, I hadn’t finished a book yet. Which put me behind schedule. Fun things, people. Fun things.
Should this continue to happen and I find myself being stressed out by behind schedule, I’ll lower my goal down to 50 again. I’d rather have peace of mind than a higher number.
Read 15 Contemporary Books
We’ve covered my new found love of contemporary in various posts in the past two years so I don’t have to make a whole thing out of it here. I just know that with spring and summer there’ll be a ton of awesome contemporary novels out there that I’ll want to read and I want to make sure I get to at least 15 for the year.

Read 5 Adult Books
This is a new goal for 2019 that I’m quite excited about! I used to read just adult books as a teenager (for some reason, the young adult section of my library back then never drew me in) and for some reason, I don’t reach for those books anymore. But! 2018 had some really fantastic adult books (fantasy mainly, that I saw) that I want to give a chance this year! And since this is a new goal, I want to start out slowly. Obviously, if I find a ton more books I’ll be more than happy about that too.
Read 10 Debut Novels
This was part of my 2018 reading challenge too and I really enjoyed having it there, so I’m bringing it back again. There are so many fantastic debut authors out there that I want to read and explore/discover this year. Unfortunately, I’m not quite as up to date, so if you have any suggestions, please share them in the comments!

Empty Unread Books Box
I recently had to reorganize my shelves again (I’m constantly running out of space… I wonder why) and I decided to take off any of the unread books that I had on there and put them in a separate little box of shame for myself to give myself more space for new books. There are currently 13 books in that box and I want to make it a mission to get through them this year. It’s about god damn time for some of them, let’s just say that.
Read Books I Buy ASAP
This one should be fairly easy to stick with as I only allow myself to buy books I’m super excited about and will read immediately. I’ve been on a much stricter book buying budget since early-ish 2018 where I only buy new releases that I’m super excited about and will read right away and that’s worked out really well and I want to continue this in 2019.
Read & Review German Review Copies
Even though I’ve been on a rather strict book buying budget lately, I still got quite a few new books through review copies but those haven’t gotten the love they deserve and I need to change that in 2019. I currently have 7 books that were sent to me for review that I want to get to early in 2019. This is also going to help me work towards my goal of emptying that book box!

That’s it for my reading goals for 2019 – so far. I might think of more to include down the road which I’ll just include in my goal check-ins that I’ll be doing around April! 🙂
I was originally going to include blogging goals too but I quickly realized that I was talking too much and this post was getting quite long so I’m splitting this into two different posts to make it easier for all of us. That post should come sometime next week, I think! 🙂

Now that I’ve shared my reading goals, I obviously want to hear about you guys’ too! Do you set yourself reading goals or do you prefer going into the year without them? Why or why not? What are some of your goals if you’ve set them for yourself?
And I might need your help with coming up with some fun debut novels to read for 2019, so if you guys have any recommendations I’d appreciate it if you left them in the comments down below!

I’m also trying to read adult books this year! I set myself to one adult book a month, on average, because that will give me one or two more adult books this year than I read last year. I’m not giving up on YA because I still adore it, but it still feels increasingly limiting to not read adult books and I want to branch out more!
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I love your goal! I might change it to that down the line too if I find myself reading more than just the five I set for myself – especially early on! I hope you can do it!
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These are some fantastic goals! I used to read adult books when I was in middle and high school, but started reading so much YA after college. I don’t know why that happened. Good luck with your goals!
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Thank you, Merline!
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Awesome goals!! I recently posted my bookish goals for 2019, and you can read them here if you’d like: https://readingreadingreading.com/2019/01/03/2019-bookish-goals/
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Thank you! 🙂
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Those look like great goals! Hope you make them. Usually I set my goodreads goal very high (100) but last year I failed miserably. So now it’s set for 80 and hope I can push myself to make it. Reading is good for my peace of mind so I hope that motivates me to find time to read instead of scroll facebook:-p. Another goal is to read more females and non-white authors and non-fiction that can help me
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OMG if I spend the time I waste on scrolling on my phone to actually reading? I’d get SO many more books read. xD Oh, I like your non-white authors goal! I need to work on that too, for sure! Good luck with your goals!
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Thanks, you to!
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Good luck with all your reading and goals. Are the German books translations or books written by German authors?
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Thank you! Erm, if I remember correctly, they’re mainly translations! I’m not as familiar with German authors and their works as I’m mainly in the English speaking/reading bookish bubble and follow majorly American authors.
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I’ve tried to keep my reading goals vague in hopes that I might actually complete them. All I have for sure are: read 40 books, read at least one Brandon Sanderson book and read at least one Stephen King book.
I really should add on ‚read my unread books‘ too but at this point, there’s so many its an uphill struggle haha
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Ha, I’m the opposite. I need CONCRETE goals or I won’t do them – realized that last year. xD Good luck with the Sanderson and King books! Aren’t those usually pretty long?
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hahaha that’s fair enough! I may realise quickly that vague doesn’t work for me either, but I wanted to keep it nice and chill since I’ve only really just gotten out of a long reading slump.
Yup! They’re massive. The Way of Kings is nearly 600 pages long. I’m nearly 200, finished part 1 and there is an interlude. I’m beginning to realise why they’re so long haha
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These are some great goals for 2019 Swetlana, I really hope you managed to achieve them all.
Last year I tried stretching myself when it came to my Goodreads Reading Challenge, it didn’t go so well for me but I’ll be keeping my fingers crossed you reach your 65 book goal. I’m sure you can do it. Also I really should add reading the books I buy ASAP to my goals for the year too but…I’m probably not. I know myself too well now and I know that’s not one I’d be able to keep.
Great post, and good luck with these goals too. 🙂 ❤
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Thank you, Beth!
Yeah, stretching myself with my goals might turn out to be a bad idea, especially since I hope to either be back in school and work towards my goal of getting the education for the job I want or to start working in my field to get some more experience. And who knows how much time I’ll actually have to dedicate to reading under those circumstances.
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That’s all right, and oh it sounds like you have a lot going on (good luck with school and everything). I suppose you can always change your goal if you find it unmanageable, and you never know you may surprise yourself. 🙂
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This is all amazing goals Swetlana! I do have some for 2019: read 50 books, read all my physical TBR (I have around 12, it should be manageable if I didn’t buy any new books…), unhaul some books, finish at least 5 series, and start 3 series 😀
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I really like your goals! Even if you buy new books, at least if you read one a month from the ones you already own, you don’t make your physical TBR too much bigger in the long run! Or you have to be stricter with your book buying. 😛
I don’t even know what series I’ll be reading this year??? I feel like most of them have concluded in 2018??? This isn’t good.
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Ahh good luck with your reading goals!! 💕🌼 I’m trying to read at least a few adult books this year, but I didn’t set it as a goal as I failed a bit at that last year 😅 At least I still have my adult book shelf on Goodreads for reference!! I also love the idea of the ‘box of shame’ I should probably do one too for my oldest unread books 😂 I see some people are doing a book cart for their unread books, which looks cool, I just have no space for it 😄
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That bookcart is something I keep lusting after but then I’m like ‘Stop buying things you don’t ACTUALLY need. Buy books instead!’. Though I’m sure I’ll get something like it at some point – just for the aesthetics of it. xD
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