It’s time to look forward to my reading year of 2021. Every year I try to participate in a few reading challenges just to help me prioritize certain books. I’m not a big fan of joining challenges with random book prompts. I’ve noticed that reading outside my TBR can be disappointing. I’m quite good at picking books that I know I’ll like and I also try to read outside my standard (royal) historical fiction genre a few times a year.
Goodreads reading challenge
2020 was the first year where I raised my Goodreads challenge from 30 to 35 books. And I managed to hit that target in November. For 2021, I’ll also set my challenge on 35 books. I do want this challenge to be manageable, especially as I plan to read some big books and/or classics. But I still want to read 3 to 4 books a month and this means I’ll end up around 35 books.
The historical fiction reading challenge
Originally hosted by a few other blogs, than by Passages of the past and now by Intrepid Reader, this challenge is all about my favorite genre: historical fiction. The goal is to pick a number of historical fiction books you want to read, corresponding to a certain historical era. Write a review of what you’ve read and link-up your reviews every month at the Intrepid Reader.
These are the different levels you can choose from:
- 20th Century Reader – 2 books
- Victorian Reader – 5 books
- Renaissance Reader – 10 books
- Medieval – 15 books
- Ancient History – 25 books
- Prehistoric – 50+ books
For me this is an easy choice. I will strive to meet the Ancient History level. Almost 90% of what I read is historical fiction so this should be easy. I secretly hope to hit more than 25 books, but Prehistoric will be too ambitious as I don’t read 50 books a year (yet—one may have hope :D).
Any sub-genre of historical fiction is accepted, as there is historical romance, historical mystery, historical fantasy, young adult, history/non-fiction… Roughly counted, of the 38 books I read in 2020, 33 of them are historical fiction. A few others are in a kind of grey zone if they are either historical or contemporary/fantasy (How to stop time and the winter of the witch for example).
The classics club
And then of course, 2021 will be my first year of the Classics Club! You can read my sign up post for this challenge here and my progress can be followed on my Classics Club page. I will start with The tenant of Wildfell Hall by Anne Brönte as my first classic. And after that, who knows? Maybe, I’ll join some of the Classics Club spins where you have to compile a list of 20 books and then read the books corresponding the number that was the outcome of the spin. Funny way of choosing your next read.
This is it for now. Maybe I’ll join some other challenge during the year. Maybe not. I’m looking forward to all those great (or so I hope) reads!
What reading challenges are you aiming at in 2021?
In Another Era 