Reading Resolutions

True to my New Year's Blogging Resolution, I'm back! :o) Ok, so it's been 2 weeks, but that's better than 2 months, right?

Just wanted to jot down somewhere another of my 2015 resolutions, this one involving reading.

Last year I signed up for the Reading Challenge on Goodreads, more as a motivation to keep track of the titles I read during the year that the actual challenge in itself. I signed myself up for 50 books, figuring I could handle 1 book / week with a couple of weeks extra just in case. I almost made it too! 47/50 books, not bad! (some of them were longer than expected...) But as I was reviewing the list of books, I realized I needed to switch up my reading a bit! In 2014 I read mainly 2 authors (Bernard Cornwell and Diana Gabaldon) because I got absorbed by two fabulous yet looong series: The Saxon Chronicles and the Outlander novels. Then I also read two old series that have been favorites of mine since childhood and adolescence: the Anne of Green Gables stories (Lucy Maud Montgomery) and the Wolfwalker series (Tara K. Harper - who seems to have disappeared after publishing the first book in a new wolf walker trilogy years ago and has me desperate to read what comes next! *sob*). Another thing I noticed was that I only read 1 book in French and 1 in Spanish. Tsk! Tsk! Tsk!

So this year I'm setting myself a double challenge: read the 50 books as planned (signed up again on Goodreads), but this time more DIVERSITY in the reading! So less Historical Fiction (my favorite genre), no never-ending series, and a significant increase in books in French and Spanish!

To add to this diversity challenge, I might take up some points from this list someone pointed out to me online (don't remember where it comes from so can't link, sorry!):

I've already read 5 books this year, 2 which fit on the list (book read in 1 day, book that takes place over Christmas). Some of the categories I find a bit amusing... "Book set in another country"? Ummm... all of them??? For me the challenge would be "Book set in Spain"! :p But the big one will probably be "Book set in your hometown". Which is my hometown?!?!?! I guess Alicante for now, but don't know of any books set here! "A book more than 100 years old" is easy peasy considering one of my favorite literary centuries is the 19th and I read Jane Austen over and over... Or maybe I should dust off Little Women for the umpteenth time? Or The Three Musketeers? Or maybe extra challenge and make that "A book more than 100 years old that you've never read before". As for "A book with more than 500 pages"... damn! I'm doing most of my reading on the Kindle so the page count doesn't fit! Guess I'll have to pull The Lord of the Rings off the shelf or something! ;o) Although a "book of short stories" would probably be more than 500 pages so there's that... Missing on that list would be "A Classic of Literature you've never read"!

So, lots to read this year! Good thing I've got the Kindle for those long flights I keep taking for work. Might even find the time to write about some of them... :o)