Reading Goals for 2021
Every year I set a number of books I want to read, but this year I’ve decided to also have 4 specific goals to guide what I choose to read. There is also the perennial goal of reading the books I own before I buy more (which I inevitably fail). Without further ado, these are my 4 reading goals and the 12 books I’ll read to achieve them:
- Read more Mexican authors. Even though Mexico has a very prolific literary scene, I embarrassingly know very little of it because I keep choosing foreign authors instead. Thus, it was about time I prioritized this. These are the 5 books I want to read:
- Where the Air Is Clear by Carlos Fuentes (1958)
- La noche navegable by Juan Villoro (1980) No edition in English yet.
- Leona by Celia del Palacio (2010) No edition in English yet.
- The Body Where I was Born by Guadalupe Nettel (2011)
- The Story of My Teeth by Valeria Luiselli (2013)
2. Read more classics. This is another persistent goal of mine. Reading books that are universally and historically acclaimed at least inspires some confidence on them being a good investment of our time, and they tend to be more of a challenge because of their language and length. These are the 5 classics I want to read:
- The Count of Monte Cristo by Alexandre Dumas (1844)
- The Jungle Book by Rudyard Kipling (1894)
- Siddhartha by Hermann Hesse (1922)
- Hopscotch by Julio Cortázar (1963)
- One Hundred Years of Solitude by Gabriel García Márquez (1967)
3. Read poetry. This is not a type of literature I usually read, however, there are several poems I’ve come across which I love, such as those by W.H. Auden, Derek Walcott, Pablo Neruda and Sor Juana Ines de la Cruz, for example. Before diving into the genre I plan to read Leer poesía by Gabriel Zaid (1972 — no edition in English yet) which mainly covers Mexican poetry. If you have any poetry book recommendations, Mexican or otherwise, please leave them in the comments!
4. Re-reading favorite books. There are so many books I think of as favorites that I actually don’t remember that much about. Therefore, I’ve decided to re-read at least one this year and I’ve chosen one that according to my Goodreads I read not too long ago (2017) but that I’d like to read again more attentively and also write a review about: Frankenstein by Mary Shelley (1818).
My goal is to read at least 30 books, so there’s still enough room to read other titles that cross my way.
I also have one goal regarding this new project, Cuaderno Reciclado. I’ve deeply enjoyed starting a project entirely out of love, finally, after thinking about it for years. Thank you so much for reading it! Although I would love to publish content every day I’m also very aware of my limitations and I know that I’m on the slower side with regards to reading and writing, therefore, my goal is to post 2 book reviews per month.
If there’s something we’ve collectively learned in 2020 is that health will always be the most important, so I wish you health in 2021, and as always, good books.
Do you have any reading goals for 2021? Tell me about them in the comments.
This post was originally published in Spanish at Cuaderno Reciclado.
