reading resolutions: 2012 in review.

Last year I had 2 reading resolutions:

1. Read 52 books.

2. Read more non-fiction and biography books.

I picked these 2 goals for a couple of reasons. Of course, I wanted to read more books. 52 books is the equivalent of 1 book a week. I know in the past I’ve been able to read through an entire book on a lazy Sunday afternoon, so reading 1 book a week did not sound too daunting. But I also wanted to read a larger variety of books. I usually gravitate towards chick-lit or young adult books in the bookstore and library, so I wanted to challenge myself to move out of my comfort zone and read more non-fiction books.

Unfortunately I did not hit my 1 book a week goal. I only read 45 books in 2012, with a grand total of 15,537 pages.

I have no excuses. My only explanation is that I ran out of time. In the first part of the year, I was cruising along nicely. In fact, I was ahead of my goal. And then, work got in the way. I started working 2 jobs and was working 7 days a week and I just did not have the free time that I had in the past. Since my free time was spent doing things like sleeping and eating, I ended up having to cut down on my reading time as a result.

I also did not complete my goal to read more non-fiction. I only read 3 non-fiction books in 2012 – 1 memoir and 2 books on creativity.

Clearly I had hoped to read more non-fiction but that did not work out. I’d like to think that if I had more time and read more books in general last year, that those extra books would have been non-fiction. I think that I got so busy towards the end of the year that when I did have time to sit down and read, that I leaned towards the easy, fun genre of my chick-lit and YA books.

I am still fine-tuning my reading goals for 2013 so we will have to wait and see what I come up with.