I've finished 2018 with 20+ books short of the Goodreads challenge. I haven't done it until 250 books as I planned and although I've started the year in a relatively optimistic bookish note, somewhere in the middle of the year - probably around July/August, I've noticeably slowed down.
With piles of books from the local libraries - both fiction and non-fiction - and over 1,000 ARCs ready to be reviewed, I've somehow failed to reach my optimistic reading goals. 2018 was a good yet confuse year from me, both professionally and personally, therefore the choice of and approach to books was relatively challenging. From literature to politics and science books, to self-help and even poetry (an area that I relatively neglected in the previous years), my choice of books was well tempered and helped me to navigate smoothly through the realities of my life and the new professional assignments.
Therefore, I am definitely ready to embrace the new challenges of 2019, while keeping the commitment to finish at least as many interesting books as in the previous year. Books that will help me better understand my personal writing challenges, books that would open up new worlds and human emotions and experiences, books that will teach me new skills and encourage me to follow new spiritual paths.
The last year I was able to discover a couple of new interesting writers outside the usual European/Western realm and hopefully would be able to continue the exploration. As my plans for the year is to improve my Spanish and Portuguese, hopefully there will be more books read in original in those two languages. Another relatively secret dream of mine is to be able to read and fluently understand Hungarian again, a language I grew up with but neglected for way too many reasons. However, I see this coming only from April on, when I might be more safe with my other two languages. More reading - and preferably writing - in German is also part of the to-do-list for 2019, and 2018 was relatively a good year for improving - although not at the level I need to start writing and pitching in this language - my skills, but I am still far from my expectations.
With so many books received to review from the previous years, at least for the six first months I would rather focus on my current library than hurry up to purchase or request new books. It is quite hard for me, but a bit of moderation in bookish issues is more than welcomed. As for now, I will prefer to focus more on writing than on various events - book tours and interviews - but for the second part of the year I want to focus more - again - on libraries and the bookish lifestyle and challenges in general of being nowadays a person who reads, attached to the physical books.
I also want to be more prolific in writing my reviews, as much as I would love to see my writing style changing, improving and creating a more significant impact than before. Maybe, a little bit of more social media activity would not hurt as well, but given all the blogs I have to manage and their attached social media channels, I could only dream about finally jumping out of the mediocrity level and maybe becoming a bookish 'influencer' too. As someone who is doing social media curation and daily management, I know oh so well how much time such activities require and honestly I have no idea how would find that necessary amount of time to juggle with the branding of this bookish identity hat.
2019, I am ready for your reading challenges! Bring on those unforgettable books and amazing authors, with their unique stories! Can't wait to read my way through the year and share on my blog as many bookish adventures as possible!
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