Wednesday, January 13, 2021

Kicking Off 2021 With Some Changes!

Welcome to 2021 everyone!  We've made it to a new year and almost two weeks in things are already crazy, huh?  Hopefully things will get better as the new year rolls along.  

Some big changes are happening in my life.  First, in September, I got married and my wife and I moved into a new apartment where we can have our own little library and reading space.  Our Pomeranian dog, Teddy, very much enjoys our new place and the new bed he has in our home library.  The second major change I am making is in a new approach to my never-ending quest to slay my TBR.

For the past few years, I have really enjoyed taking part in Book Riot's Read Harder Challenge as it has helped me get out of my comfort zone and explore new genres and authors I didn't know about or may not have thought to actually read.  However, I have sometimes let my drive to complete the challenge overcome my desire to read books on my TBR.  So, this year I will be prioritizing books on my TBR over purchasing books or borrowing books from the library.  I will still be purchasing books for the history book club I moderate at a local indie bookstore and this year's Read Harder challenge is helping me to prioritize certain books on my TBR shelf that match the challenges, but the priority this year is to read books off the TBR shelf before purchasing or borrowing a new one.  To that end, I have taken the 2021 Reading Log from Book Riot's Tirzah Price (as always, thank you Tirzah for the putting together another great tool) and added a sheet of all the books on my TBR and will mark which ones I have completed as I read through my TBR this year.  I have updated the Reading Log page on this blog to give a view of my 2021 Reading log and I have even included links to the previous reading logs I have kept in 2018, 2019, and 2020.  If there are any mistakes in my log, please let me know as I want to keep an accurate count of both the number and type of books and authors I have read in the past.

The other major change I will be making is to this blog itself.  In the past, I have treated this blog as little more than another repository of the book reviews I write on Goodreads.  I have even tried branching out my blog and recording a running blog of my training for the Los Angeles Marathon last year.  Sadly, like a lot of personal journals I have tried to keep up with in the past, that did not last long.  This year though, I will be attempting to post more regular blogs about how my reading quest is going.  I will be posting full-length reviews on here and more shortened reviews on my Goodreads page and from there connecting to my full-length reviews on here.

Of course, this is all subject to my life circumstances.  While I (thankfully) still have a teaching job, there may be another major change to my life coming in the fall that will upend how much time I can devote to pleasure reading.  Also, being a married man now, my reading life will always come second to taking care of my wife.  So, as 2021 rolls along I hope you will continue to read and enjoy this blog.  I've already posted the reviews for the first two books I have read this year (The Five: The Untold Lives of the Women Killed by Jack the Ripper by Hallie Rubenhold and Transcendent Kingdom by Yaa Gyasi) on here.  Also, be on the lookout for my first general reading blogs.  I will aim for writing something weekly, but you never know what can get in the way.  Be sure to click the follow button on the side and send any feedback to me that would be of assistance.  

Happy new year and happy reading! 🤓📚

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