We are now nine days into the new year, and it’s been terrible. Luckily I just got rid of one of my more troublesome projects, though, so I’m hoping I won’t have to work late every night this coming week. Last week’s unrelenting lateness is the reason I’m currently sitting here filling out a book tag instead of reviewing the Poppy War series like I’d planned. My review drafts are stacking up, but they’ll have to wait because I’m fucking tired and I’m really not feeling the whole blogging thing right now. (No, really, I have a lot of content planned. You’ll see. Eventually.)
Original tag by Bookables.
1. How many books are you planning to read in 2021?
I got 79 problems, and all of them are books. My official reading challenge goal is 72, but, since I then went and made myself a TBR of 79, that somewhat delusional 72 thing kinda went out the window.
On the bright side, I have finished three books so far this year, which currently puts me two books ahead of schedule.
2. Name 5 books that you didn’t get to in 2020 but want to make a priority in 2021.
In no particular order:
Harrow the Ninth
Tamsyn Muir
I read Gideon the Ninth back in November and then promptly hit a reading slump, which is why Harrow has been languishing on the shelf for months. Sorry, Harrow. It’s Gideon’s fault because she gave me the mother of all book hangovers.
The Invisible Life of Addie LaRue
V.E. Schwab
Lori sent me this for Christmas and I still have not picked it up!!! I’m really looking forward to this one, partly because it sounds intriguing and partly because I’ve never read V.E. Schwab but have heard a lot of good things about her.
The Bone Shard Daughter
Andrea Stewart
I’m always on the lookout for good own voice Asian fantasies. I picked this one up several months ago, but for some reason have kept getting distracted by reading slumps and other books, and have consequently kept putting it off.
The Three-Body Problem
Cixin Liu
I don’t really read sci-fi, but I’m really curious about Cixin Liu. I have the first two books in this series (Rememberance of Earth’s Past), which was partially translated by Ken Liu, yet another Chinese author I still have yet to read. I am less interested in book 4, which was written by a different author and sounds like published fanfiction, but the first three books sound really interesting.
A Promised Land
Barack Obama
I MISS HIM. I haven’t read too many autobiographies/memoirs and am not particularly familiar with them as a sub-genre, so I’m really looking forward to both A Promised Land and Becoming, which I plan to read first.
3. What genre do you want to read more of?
I’ve really been getting into nonfiction since more or less discovering the genre in 2019, when I happened to read The Black Count and The Professor and the Madman. I have traditionally associated nonfiction with crushing boredom because school, but I really loved these two books, and have been getting steadily more interested in nonfiction in general because at some point in 2020 my inner Hermione got loose and started running amok. (Also apparently The Professor and the Madman was turned into a TV show, in which I am mildly interested.)
Recent nonfiction reads have included Caste: The Origins of Our Discontents (Isabel Wilkerson) and Empress Dowager Cixi: The Concubine Who Launched Modern China (Jung Chang), which were both excellent. I have several nonfiction books on my 2021 TBR, and am excited to read them.
4. Name 3 non-book-related goals for 2021.
- Finish my novels.
- Finish my novels.
- Finish my novels.
I wish I were joking. My writing was the first thing to fall by the wayside last year, which isn’t exactly conducive to publication.
5. What’s a book you’ve had forever that you still need to read?
Frantumaglia (Elena Ferrante). Don’t worry, it’s on my list.
6. One word that you’re hoping 2021 will be:
Productive.
