Consider the following my hub for a 2021 year-long TBR. It is obviously subject to change, and this post is specifically geared towards my general Quarterly Goals, including information regarding the specific 2021 reading challenges I intend to participate in.
I have spent a day or so selecting my reads for nearly the entire year in these challenges. These are The Uncorked Librarian 2021 (#UncorkedReading2021) as well as for 2020 (#UncorkedReading2020) which I will be attempting at the same time, and GirlXOXO's Monthly Motif challenge for 2021 (#MonthlyMotifGXO). I'm not sure how I will format my general Quarterly Goals from month to month, but my goal is definitely to make my selections prior to the quarter's start.
But first, a little explanation...
Shelf Space and Shelf Control
The last couple of weeks I've realized that while I do not have the physical shelf space to purchase TONS of books, by reading solely via renting from a library, the authors who spent hours, days, weeks, months, or years writing their masterpieces that we love, don't wind up getting paid per read. And although many best-selling authors can deal without my additional funds, some of my upcoming TBR picks are indie authors who are not making money hand over fist and definitely deserve and need a boost.
I decided to spend the time selecting the TUL and GXOXO picks so that I can order these as physical books. January is just around the corner and if I want to purchase books in time for reading during the actual month, I need to select them and order/purchase them now. My general quarterly goal reads may or may not be physically purchased.
Typically I do not share reading tastes with many people in my physical sphere. Most of my friends have no use for Legend of Drizzt Do'Urden books by R.A. Salvatore. I still buy them as subseries ombibuses because thankfully my son shares my joy of Drizzt.
As a woman in my 40s, I haven't friends my age who enjoy YA Fantasy like The Lunar Chronicles by Marissa Meyer or Cassandra Clare's world of the Shadowhunters. Additionally, I enjoy Middle Grade level books, particularly ones like Rick Riordan's teenage demigod creations and absolutely anything written by Tamora Pierce.
If more of these books had existed in my youth, I may not have spent so long floundering. I have also found that reading these allow me to delve back into my childhood and reevaluate the youth under a different lens. It's a method of therapy for me. In fact, my 12 year old self got into Fantasy thanks to Tamora's Lioness Quartet, but it was the only series I knew of and we didn't have the internet as readily available as it is now, let alone at our fingertips via smart phones.
I cannot in good conscious spend tons and gobs of money on books because as I said, I really do not have people that I can share them with and pass them on to. There are also so many copies out there of the YA and Middle Grade books I mentioned that attempting to sell them to a used book store won't net me close to anything that I paid for them.
However, due to the nature of the TUL and GXOXO challenges and the books I have selected, I believe I may have people in my life I can gift the books to afterwards or can unhaul them at one of our local used book stores pretty readily.
On to my goals...
Quarterly Goals
Each quarter I want to branch out and read genres and subgenres that I typically do not read. This year I read mostly YA and mostly fantasy, but was pleasantly surprised by the non Typical-Lizzie books I happened to pick up in between.
I do not feel that I can commit to 1 book per genre per month. That winds up being a lot of books! I do have a full time job, along with crafts, genealogy research, home maintenance/repair projects for 2 separate homes* that I want to complete, 400+ television shows to watch/catch up on/complete, as well as the job of raising a teenager, taking care of an aging parent, and maintaining a healthy marriage.
60 books read in 2020 was a pretty decent goal. It broke down to approximately 5 books per month, but many months I was able to complete 6 or 7, meaning I've pretty much taken all of December off of reading, mostly due to the holidays and was able to finish of the challenge in November by reading only 2 books.
Over the course of each quarter, I want to read at least 1 book from each of the following genres. In the case of Fantasy, Mystery, and Thriller & Suspense, the goal is to read from a subgenre that I normally do not read. My selections for many of the theme/motifs will classify as one of these. This means I am committing to at least 8 books per quarter.
- Nonfiction
- Western
- Classic
- Thriller & Suspense
- Romance
- SciFi
- Mystery
- Fantasy
Links to 2021 Quarterly TBRs
2021 Quarter Two
2021 Quarter Three
2021 Quarter Four
*2 Separate Homes: When people say this in blogs they are typically talking about second homes or vacation homes or something similar. I rankle when I read this because I cannot connect with them at all. Must be nice to have the means to do that! In my case, I do not own 2 homes. In fact, I don't even own 1. My husband and I have been renting our home for over 10 years and have no equity built up at all. My biological father owns his parents' first house and he is disabled, leaving maintenance all to me, his only child that bothers. While moving my family into that home in order to take better care of him would make sense, there is simply not enough space and I cannot imagine my husband and my father under the same roof. That actually sounds like an absolute nightmare or a Stephen King horror novel of epic proportions. I just wanted to clarify my statement for others out there who read blogs and feel the same as me. I promise, I'm not that out of touch with the realities of the daily grind. 😁
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