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2022 Reflection

Did I meet my 2022 reading goal?

Let’s reflect.

My stated/initial goal was to finish all 10 of my in-progress books. I didn’t know how realistic that would be. My understated goal (the true meaning of everything) was to restart my reading habit and read regularly again. It wasn’t a time-basted SMART goal to read X number of times per week as that would be demotivating, but I wanted to wander through the year with the aim to read more often than I was prior to 2022.

During my June reflection on progress, I celebrated wins and started recognizing my patterns.

I read 6 books in 2022. They were not all in-progress books, but I read 6 full books nonetheless! This year had a lot of major stressors and I found it hard to focus, but I still kept on with it and tried my best. There’s still time before the year ends after this post and who knows, I might finish 8 books!

I’d say I met the intent of my goal, as I definitely read more often. The number finished doesn’t bother me that much – I used to read shorter books, and two of the books I’m currently reading are textbooks.

Creating a list of choices seems to have been successful. Not in the sense that I read all the books off the list, but in the sense that I had something to compare against. I could read one of these books on my list… OR I could read this other book I’m more interested in right now.

Because I didn’t force myself to complete the list, reading became more interesting. I had more than one choice, but less than all the books in my house, so it was less overwhelming too. This was something I noted as a blocker in my 2022 reading goal post.

Original In-Progress List from Jan 2022

• 6 of the original 10 books were marked ‘did not finish’ and I have abandoned them. I might try to read some again in my life, a few I gave up entirely on and donated already.
  • The Floating Opera and The End of the Road
  • The Power of Kindness: Why Empathy Is Essential in Everyday Life
  • Why I Write
  • The Gates of Janus: Serial Killing and Its Analysis
  • Good White Racist?: Confronting Your Role in Racial Injustice
  • The Storyteller
• 2 of the books I finished were on my in-progress list at the beginning of the year – how exciting to have finished them!
  • The Ghost: A Cultural History
  • Solutions and Other Problems
• 3 of the original 10 books are still in progress and I plan to make a huge dent in them next year
  • An Actor Prepares
  • A Pattern Language: Towns, Buildings, Construction
  • Developing Quality Technical Information: A Handbook for Writers and Editors

New Reads

• 4 of the books I finished were new reads – not in progress at the beginning of the year
  • The Little Book of Hygge: Danish Secrets to Happy Living
  • Beyond the Gender Binary
  • Transgender History
  • Docs Like Code
• 1 book this year was not in progress at the beginning of the year, but I also marked ‘did not finish’. I was trying Daily Dracula which was very exciting at first, but per usual with my Dracula reads, I eventually got tired of it.
  • Dracula
• Currently reading 2 more books that were not in progress
  • Caste: The Origins of Our Discontents
  • The Product is Docs: Writing technical documentation in a product development group

Looking Ahead

I’m joining a book challenge my friend IG @eastofreaden is putting on called #TBR20in23 (TBR = to be read). I’m using books only out of my current collection.

In addition to listing my initial selects for the challenge here, I’ve also added them to the prompts in the Storygraph challenge page, if you’re into that kind of thing.

Oldest book (by date): Tale of Genji Newest book (purchased): Touch by Richard Kearney Math-related word: The Polysyllabic Spree by Nick Hornby Book-related word: History of Reading by Steven Roger Fischer Author I’ve never read: Solitude by Anthony Storr Less than 150 pages: Crazy Sexy Ghoulish by GG Andrew More than 500 pages: A Pattern Language by Christopher Alexander Nature-related word: The Halloween Tree by Ray Bradbury Favorite genre: Developing Quality Technical Information Set in a country outside of North America: Japanese fairy tales Non-fiction: How Humans Learn by Joshua R. Eyler Book you meant to read in 2022: An Actor Prepares by Stanislavski Debut: I Didn’t Do the Thing Today by Madeleine Dore Translated book: New Penguin Parallel Text Short Stories in Japanese Featuring a holiday: The Book of Halloween by Ruth Edna Kelley Adapted into a movie/series: Goosebumps books Title starts with first letter of my name: Men Without Women by Haruki Murakami Retelling: The Book of Yokai by Michael Dylan Foster Award winner: Recommended by a friend: Shady Characters by Keith Houston

I’ll have to find a book to fill in that blank, since I don’t have any award winners that caught my interest.

My hope is that I’ll read some more of these books that I’ve been wanting to read for a long time. I’ve kept them around from apartment to apartment and they were spared when I downsized my collection each time I moved. If I end up reading 10 books not on this list, that would be nice too! I’ll continue with the general goal to read regularly and more often, and add the desire to reflect on my patterns more than once a year.

As a semi-related goal, I’d like to make more progress on my book stats spreadsheets where I’m trying to track info on all the books I own.