New Year, New Plans

An update on what's on the shelf and the future of this blog.

Happy 2024! We are officially just over a week into the new year! I hope things are going smoothly for the rest of you.

As it's tradition to make resolutions when a new year comes around, I figured I should make a few regarding the maintenance of this blog. Hopefully, these plans won't be the kind I abandon before the end of January.

I've been reexamining my 2023 reading habits, and I've realized that I likely had a reading slump for several months because I was trying to read too many books. I have accounts on GoodReads and StoryGraph, and at the start of each year, both websites encourage users to set a reading goal. The average number of books set as a yearly goal on GoodReads tends to be 40, and several people I follow (many of which run blogs similar to mine) planned to read 60 or more. So, when I set my 2023 challenge, I was determined to read at least four books per month: two for the blog and two for "fun."

As you can imagine, this led to a bad case of burnout. I grew discouraged when I wasn't reading fast enough to post more than one review every few weeks and found myself searching for short audiobooks and comics from the library I could consume just to meet my reading goal.

That's the standout word, isn't it? Consume. By setting such a high goal for myself, I was unable to actually focus on most of the books I was reading. I wasn't enjoying them; I was just reading so I could check them off my reading list.

So, my first resolution for this year is to keep my reading goal low. I aim to finish and review one book by the end of each month. If a particular book is shorter than expected, I might read and review a second one. But I want to really savor my reads this year so that I can write more thoughtfully about them.

My second resolution is partially tied to the first: to limit the number of books I borrow from the library, both online and in-person. There are a few books I started last year that I had to put on pause because I ran out of renewals. I still want to finish them, but they won't be my main focus. This means there likely will be no "Library Reads" post this year, unless I have some thoughts on these particular books that I need to get out.

My third resolution is promote my blog on social media to expand my audience. This includes improving my presence on accounts I already have, starting up on new platforms, and deleting certain accounts that don't work for me. I've been setting up an official My Cluttered Bookshelf Facebook page for a while now, which I hope to go public with in February, if not earlier. I'm also going to test some recently released websites to see if they're worth using. Twitter—sorry, I mean, "X"—has always intimidated me. It's a political cesspool, and the only reason I haven't deleted my account, despite not posting anything since last summer, is because so many people say it's great for promoting your work and networking. But if some of these new alternatives to X, like Post and Mastodon, end up being less chaotic, I'll drop it for good.

Finally, I wanted to update you about what's on the shelf. My book collection ended up expanding over the past year due to impulse buys, gifts from family, and a few novels I inherited from my late grandfather. I intend to stick to my no-buy plan this year at least until December. But for now, here are the books you can expect me to review sometime in the future:

• Aftermath by Kelley Armstrong

• Aristotle and Dante Discover the Secrets of the Universe by Benjamin Alire Sáenz

• The Art of Racing in the Rain by Garth Stein

• The Beirut Hellfire Society by Rawi Hage

• Black Bread, White Beer by Niven Govinden

• The Bloody Chamber by Angela Carter

• The Book of Hidden Things by Francesco Dimitri

• The Book of Negroes by Lawrence Hill

• Bridge of Clay by Markus Zusak

• Cockroach by Rawi Hage

• The Curious Incident of the Dog in the Night-Time by Mark Haddon

• Everything Everything by Nicola Yoon

• Flowers in the Attic by V. C. Andrews

• Foucault's Pendulum by Umberto Eco

• The Girl in Red by Christina Henry

• The Girl With All The Gifts by M. R. Carey

• The Girl Who Loved Tom Gordon by Stephen King

• Good Omens by Neil Gaiman and Terry Pratchett

• House of Leaves by Mark Z. Danielewski

• How to Get Along With Women by Elisabeth de Mariaffi

• Hunger by Roxanne Gay

• I’m Glad My Mom Died by Jennette McCurdy

• Ink by Alice Broadway

• In the Dream House by Carmen Maria Machado

• Invisible Monsters by Chuck Palahniuk

• Iron Widow by Xiran Jay Zhao

• Landline by Rainbow Rowell

• The Last Picture Show by Larry McMurtry

• Let the Right One In by John Ajvide Lindqvist

• The Lovely Bones by Alice Sebold

• Lullabies for Little Criminals by Heather O’Neill

• The Memory Librarian: And Other Stories of Dirty Computer by Janelle Monáe et al.

• The Name of the Rose by Umberto Eco

• Native Tongue by Suzette Haden Elgin

• NW by Zadie Smith

• Orlando by Virginia Woolf

• The Pillars of the Earth by Ken Follett

• The Road by Cormac McCarthy

• Solomon Grundy Was Here by Mordecai Richler

• Sputnik’s Children by Terri Favo

• Through the Woods by Emily Carroll

• The Virgin Suicides by Jeffrey Eugenides

• We Set the Dark On Fire by Tehlor Kay Mejia

• What Goes Around by Ruth Clarke

I hope you all have a wonderful January, and I'll talk to you again by the end of the month!