March is the month for making plans

Resolutions and plans made in January are almost always doomed to fail. It’s still the middle of winter – cold, dark and uninspiring – so I decided a long time ago that my personal New Year was 21^st March, coinciding rather neatly with the beginning of Spring and therefore much more conducive to the success of new intentions. As the mornings get lighter again and we start to see green shoots poking up out of the ground and promising little buds forming on branches, I feel a lot more awake, alive and raring to go.

So, what would I like to achieve this year reading-wise/blogging-wise?

 

21 TBR Books for 2021

I have no great ambitions. I’d really like to read more of what I have on my own shelves because (a) I’m flat broke at the moment – the first three months of the year being seriously birthday and bills heavy for us – and (b) so I can make room for more new books when funds allow *grins widely*. To this end I’m joining in with Calmgrove’s 21 TBR Books in 2021 – which is beautiful in its simplicity and feels like a manageable goal. The aim is right there in the title: read 21 books from your TBR stack over the course of the year.

So far, I’ve knocked Daughter of the Forest by Juliet Marillier off my TBR stack by buddy-reading it with Lynn over at Books and Travelling with Lynn – and you can read our conversation about that here and here.

 

Backlist Bingo

Continuing on the theme of reading stuff I already own, I’m also playing imyril’s Backlist Book Bingo … (I lovelovelove book bingo almost as much as I love book tags and it was one of the first things I did on this blog when I started, before I know that you’re supposed to share stuff like this, because otherwise you’re just playing on your own – give a little love to my 2017 and 2018 bingo cards if you will, or at least to the completion badges I made for myself!) …

… *ahem* back to the point: Vintage SciFi Month has enabled me to cross off three categories on my bingo card so far: My Hugo Award Winner read was Stranger in a Strange Land by Robert A Heinlein, for the SciFi category I’m counting J G Ballard’s The Crystal World and The Man With Six Senses by Muriel Jaeger might have been irritating, but it was definitely Not Written By a Bloke.

As imyril has given the option to either do a bingo line or to try and complete the whole card, I’m going to try for the whole thing. I’m feeling pretty confident right now, but watch me flail and flap later in the year!

 

The Great Series Read Project

And I’m going to try this year to be a bit more systematic in my approach to the Great Series Read Project – that beautiful brainchild of Caitlin’s over at Realms of My Mind. I performed poorly last year, adding more series to my list than chipping away at series already on there. I hope to do better.

 

A Goofy Goal

I also have a goofy goal that I’d be chary of admitting to anyone IRL, but which I think at least some of you, my bloggy buddies, will appreciate. In indexing my book posts I am always pleased when I can add an author surname for a letter that doesn’t yet have anything listed under it. Last year, for example, I fell head-over-heels in love with This is How You Lose the Time War, but it was the icing on the cake when I was able to add my post for that book under the big E in my Index!

I still have a few letters to fill in. And they’re all awkward ones too. I need to find authors with surnames beginning with the following letters: Q, U, X and Z. Anyone got any suggestions?

 

In Other News…

That’s kind of it for my goals for the year. I’m looking forward, as always, to taking part in events like Wyrd and Wonder, Spooktastic Reads and SciFi Month; I already had a blast doing Vintage SciFi Month this year; I hope to do a couple more buddy reads, lots of book tags, and I’m making a conscious effort to join in with a more things.

In the next few weeks I’m going to try and post something for March Magics – a celebration of all things Diana Wynne Jones and Terry Pratchett that Calmgrove drew my attention to – and same for the super chill new All Systems Read mini event happening over the Easter weekend.

 

Finally, I am very much sticking to comfort reading still for the time being, which I know I’ll get bored of eventually, but I really need right now. That said, the exception to this is the buddy read of Kindred by Octavia E Butler that Maryam the Curious SFF Reader and I are just finishing up. Watch this space for our posts on this absolute killer of a read. Coming soon to two blogs near you!

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