My Bookish Resolutions for 2024

How I'm Making My New Year Merry & Bright - Book Style

Happy Boxing Day everybody! I have no idea what this holiday is about, but lemme tell you: the Brits have the right idea making the day after Christmas be a holiday. Who wants to do *anything* after all that revelry? I hope you are enjoying the liminal nothingness that is this week between Christmas and New Year’s.  There are no expectations, nothing anyone wants from me, it’s pure bliss. 

Except this cat, of course. This cat wants food and attention.

My intention was to give you a roundup of the books I read in 2023 today, but since I’m still not at 100 books yet, we’re instead going to review my bookish goals for 2024. I know resolutions don’t always have the best connotation to them, so I use goals instead.

Goals to me are actionable items that I have some reasonable chance of completing, not some far off pipe dream that never stood a chance. With the exception of one, I anticipate completing all of these by this time next year. Until then, I’m furiously trying to finish my remaining 2023 reading list.

Without further ado, here are my bookish resolutions for 2024: 

The Evergreen Ones 

1. Read 100 Books 

Pretty self explanatory, but for the past few years I have been reading 100 books per year. I shall keep this up for 2024. 

2. Read 12 French books

I try to read at least one French book per month. Blah Blah Blah keeping up my French literacy and all, but fun fact: French books are the only books I will allow to be categorized by color in my house. This goal will also be staying for 2024. 

Jokes on you these are all organized by the date I acquired them. But they are all also white. The ones on top are not French but still deserve your respect.

The Format Ones 

3. Read 15 books on Everand 

I have a subscription to Everand (formerly known as Scribd and still is kind of Scribd, they just split? Idk) and therefore in order to justify the monthly expense, I shall read at least 15 books from my saved list there. Audiobooks count, too. Will this do a dent in the close to 400 books I have saved on this app? Absolutely not, but a gal can dream.

4. Read 15 books on Libby 

I also have an account with Libby, which if you don’t you should too because it’s fantastic and free and yay libraries. While there isn’t the cost effective calculation involved with Libby like with Everand/Scribd, I also have about 200 books saved to read in my library account as well. So, gotta get on those, too.

This will leave me then 70 or so books to read from my oversized collection of books.¹

Behold, the list of all of the books I have yet to read in my apartment. 

The Chaotic Ones

5. The No New Books™️ Challenge 

At the end of 2022, I had the genius idea that I would buy no new books in 2023. This, I schemed, was my way of going viral. 

“You will fail.” My friend Emily² said, to my face. Did she have no faith in my tenacity? But also who am I kidding - she was absolutely right. 

In my defense, I made it until about April before the wheels well and truly fell off. I had to buy a few books for a client I was working with, and at that point the floodgates opened. Worse, I had only written two blog posts on my website about it, and never followed up again. (Don’t go looking for them, please.) Now, with the built in accountability of you, the lovely subscribers of my little Substack, I have no choice but to take this gambit seriously and try again in 2024. The thought process is with access to Everand/Scribd, Libby and my collected books, I shouldn’t have to buy anything new that I want to read.

Did I fail last year? Absolutely, totally, 100%. Will I fail this year? Absolutely, totally, 100%. I’m a writer and writing teacher. I’m intentionally setting myself up for failure here. I do think it will be fun to see how long I last and/or what cockamamie excuse I come up with to justify buying books.  Because even more important than will I not buy any books, is how many of them will be tax write offs? All of them. The answer is all of them. 

If you don’t know this Schitt’s Creek bit, it’s masterful.

You can expect regular updates on how this Challenge is going in the Friday weekly roundups. Spoiler alert: I do not see how this is going to go well but hey! It’ll be character building at least. 

6. Read all my coffee table books 

Just because. I have a few large coffee table books that I haven’t read yet. One is on Marc Chagall, and was acquired after a trip to the Musee Chagall in Nice a few years ago.

This book, specifically, which sorry I can’t find in English.

There was a stained glass exhibit going on, and I fell in love. I didn’t know I liked stained glass, but that trip made me realize I do. I now want to see all of Chagall’s stained glass worldwide. Anyways here are some pretty photos. 

Photos by me.

There are also two big photo books on Paris that I need to get through, as well as a copy of Unladylike a dear friend got for my birthday a few years back that I have never finished. No more, I say! 

7. Finish that Audre Lorde book I borrowed from Sam at the end of 2022 and have yet to finish or return. 

Yeah. Pretty self explanatory there. 

And that’s it! That’s everything I hope and plan to do for 2024. Like I said, I try to keep my goals reasonable. I am an overachiever at heart, so keeping this list realistic is important to me. Do you have any bookish goals for 2024? If you want to read more next year, I’ve got some tips and tricks for you below.

How to Read More

And on Friday, brace yourselves - I have a chaotic list of Superlatives for the books I read in 2023.

1. I don’t even know why I call it a collection - I technically have a library. As I learned in 2022, a library is defined as having over 1,000 books and I have over that. Don’t ask me how or why I know that about myself.

2. Emily, not Emilie. These are two different people, and yes I have approximately ~6 friends named Emily, or variations therein. The early 90s popped off with the name.