Happy New Year, folks! 2016 is here, and it is time to set new reading goals. Here we go.
2016 Goodreads Challenge
Last year I tried to tone down my numbers to focus on other things, but I still ended up reading about the same number of books as the previous year. Nor did it interfere with achieving my other reading goals. Since this seems to be my natural rhythm, I’m just going to roll with it, and set my metre at 130 books for 2016. Hopefully nothing happens to render this goal overly ambitious!
Maintain Diversity Awareness
My big reading goal for 2015 was to ensure that at least 25% of the books I read were by authors who are members of visible minorities. While I’m not going to formally continue this challenge into 2016 or set a concrete goal, I am going to check my numbers during each quarterly check in, just to ensure than I’m not totally forgetting about it. 2015 was a great reading year, and I’d like to hold on to what I got out of this challenge.
Even out my fiction to non-fiction ratio
Without really meaning to, I listed strongly towards fiction in 2015. Only about 23% of the books I read were non-fiction, so I am aiming to bring those numbers closer to parity in 2016. Part of this challenge will really be about organization. Non-fiction books often take me longer to read, so I sometimes slip towards reading more fiction in order to keep up with my posting schedule.
Read more Canadian Literature
Even though I’ve been living in the US for the last few years, I like to try to stay abreast of what’s going on in Canadian literature. That said, I only read eleven Canadian books last year, which isn’t even one per month. Five of them were clustered at the beginning of the year as part of my read-along with Canada Reads. I’m aiming to increase this number in 2016.
Update Blog
This isn’t a reading goal, but it is heavily tied to my reading life. Hard as it is to believe, I’ve been running this blog for over three years now. This year, I think it is time to go through and do some updates and house cleaning before things start to look too dated. I haven’t changed my header or profile pictures since I started out, and I’m starting to feel like the three-column layout looks a bit cluttered. I also have a new feature I’ve been meaning to launch for some time now, but keep putting off. So I am going to put these blogging things out here as official, reading-adjacent goals for this year, and use my quarterly challenge updates too hold myself publicly accountable.
Looks like I’ve set myself up for a busy an ambitious reading year ahead. That said, I’m giving myself permission to kick back and relax in January and just read and review whatever strikes my fancy. Then it will be down to business in February! What reading challenges are you doing in 2016?
Required Reading 
Yay for more nonfiction! Even given that nonfiction is a huge focus of my blog, it only accounts for about a third of the books I read. I think it accounts for about half the time I spend reading though, since each nonfiction book takes me longer than each fiction book, typically.
Yeah, I don’t think my final ratio will be 50/50 for that very reason, but 23% still seemed too low!