It’s a new year, and we bookish people know what that means–it’s time to set our reading goals! I won’t say that I always do a wonderful job sticking to my reading goals (my post about how I’ve done with my 2017 goals is upcoming), but I do like setting some ambitions to kick off my reading year. This year, I’m trying to make my goals realistic, but still push myself to read some great books.

So here are my 2018 reading goals!

Read at least one Catherynne M. Valente book. I recently finished The Refrigerator Monologues, and it was one of my favorite books of 2017. It made me want to read lots more from Valente, so in 2018 I’m hoping to pick up either Radiance, Deathless, or Palimpsest. I own all three, because BookOutlet.

Read at least one Octavia Butler book. I have an ongoing goal to read everything that Octavia Butler has ever written; I’m currently only at 5, so I have a ways to go. I have a few options on hand: I own a copy of Kindred and a bind-up of the Lilith’s Brood trilogy (I’ve only read the first book, Dawn), and I also have the ebook of Unexpected Stories, which is a bind-up of two previously unreleased stories. I’ve also made a deal with myself that I can’t buy the bind-up of her Patternmaster series, Seed to Harvest, unless I read one of the books of hers I already own, so hopefully that will give me some motivation.

Read at least one Margaret Atwood book. Again, one of my favorite authors and I would ideally like to read all of her books. I’m at 8 so far, and I have two on my TBR shelf: Stone Mattress and Hag-Seed. I meant to read both in 2017 and didn’t (oops). At least one of these is getting read this year.

Read more short story collections. This was a goal that I failed at in 2017. It’s not that I didn’t read any short story collections (I think I read 6), it’s just that I tend to absolutely love short story collections and give them super high ratings, but I rarely gravitate towards them when I’m browsing my shelf. I also own a ton of unread short story collections that have been on my self for awhile that I really need to read.

Read more than one classic. This is another repeat goal from last year, and I think is a good yearly goal in general. I don’t read a ton of classics nowadays, but reading a few every year is a good way to try to stay in touch with the classics even if I’m reading mostly contemporary literature. The two I’m most interested in getting to this year are Persuasion by Jane Austen and The Tenant of Wildfell Hall by Anne Bronte.

Read big books. There’s nothing better than reading a giant book that you’re able to get sucked into. I have a bunch of these chunksters on my physical TBR shelf, and I’m hoping to read several in 2018. Particularly, I’m looking at reading A Little Life by Hanya Yanigahara, The Bone Clocks by David Mitchell, The Book of Strange New Things by Michael Faber, The Tiger’s Daughter by K. Arsenault Rivera, and/or Little, Big by John Crowley.

Read more diversely. This is an ongoing goal; essentially, I want to keep trying to read more and more LGBTQIA+ authors and authors of color in 2018.

Find some new great YA authors/books. I tend to be really picky with YA and DNF books a lot due to my pickiness. However, I also have a lot of love for YA, and get super excited when I find a new great book or series. Lately, however, I feel like I’ve been sticking to a few key authors and not branching out enough with my YA reading, and in 2018 I’m hoping to find some new gems. Books I have high hopes for include The Female of the Species by Mindy McGinnis and The Bone Witch by Rin Chupeco.

Read the ten books from my “Top 10 2018 TBR” list. I went through my physical bookshelves and picked out 10 books that I’m super excited to read in 2018 (pictured at the top of this post), and my goal is to actually get to all of them. I’ve done this the past two years and somehow never made it through more than half of my picks, but this year I aim to break that pattern.

#readmyowndamnbooks. This one’s pretty self-explanatory; I’d like the majority of my reading to be from the books I actually have on my bookshelves, since I am a book buying fiend and really need to read what I’ve purchased.

And I think that’s it! Wish me luck on my 2018 goals; I’m hoping to start strong with a lot of great books in January.

Do you have any reading goals for 2018? Let me know!