I had several thoughts today, and one of them was looking at this year in regards to books I’ve read, and what I might read in the rest of the year.

So, first things first, what is/was my goal for this year. I use Goodread’s reading challenge tool to set and track this goal, which means that really short ones count the same as longer books. Since I went slightly over my 2016 goal of 20, I raised it to 25. At the time of writing this I am reading my 27th book this year already. I guess I might get to 30, and if I do, that could be my goal for the next year, but I’ll see about that later, based on how it’ll look with my studying and writing among other things.

So, I am currently reading Soldier saved, 4th book in Teralin Sword series, which I probably found through Amazon’s or Goodread’s recommendation system and which is most likely the last new read of this year. This series was surely one of the best things I’ve been reading this year, along with David Dalglish’s Paladins series (also 4 similarly short books).

Most of what I’ve been reading is fantasy (in several sub-genres) or SF-fantasy crossover and as fantasy is my main genre, it’s not likely to change much for the next year. I try to post some comment on Goodreads (too short to call it a review) and since I started this blog, longer review here (usually few days after to sort out my thoughts), so if you have similar taste, feel free to look at my GR profile (link on the left sidebar).

Now, why am I planning to read nothing new in the rest of the year?

Firstly, the (I guess and hope) problem of every reader, especially now with the vast amount of self-published e-books: too many choices. My “considering reading” list on GR is 45 books, after which I stopped adding, but there’s maybe 20 more links somewhere in a file on my PC. That does not include possible sequels to those books (which alone could get it close to 200 over time) and does not include series I temporarily abandoned but might return later (The Mortal Instruments, for example). It also does not include coming sequels to series I’m reading that are not yet in GR database (usually there’s no date for them yet, or it’s more than a few months) or other series by the author (and I am sure that at some point I’ll read more by Dalglish and Holmberg, which alone can get easily over 50 more books).

Secondly, there are some things I’d like to re-read and I think now’s the perfect time for that. It’ll be mostly shorter pieces, but won’t say which are considered, with single exception: for some reason, I feel like re-reading ‘The Picture of Dorian Gray’ which I was reading some years back as school read, by that time in my native language. This time, I’d read it in English and since it’s older work, there’s a free digital version of it on Amazon. That’s the advantage of classic works with expired copyright (I believe it’s somewhere between 70 and 90 years, not sure if since publication or author’s death).

And lastly, if something slows me down with the coming Christmas and with it hand-in time for assignments, it’s better to be slowed on re-reading than on fresh stuff I’d really like to know how it ends.

Anyway, the post is getting quite long already, so I’ll wrap it up here and leave the thoughts about how how I choose the next ‘fresh’ reads for some other time.