I made my Goodreads challenge of 96 books! More or less. Close enough, anyway. I saw a bunch of book/media wrap up templates going across my circle, but most of them were too hard, especially since it’s surprisingly difficult to get Goodreads to give me a good list of just books read in 2019.

I was hoping I would make it to 1000 books read marked in my Goodreads by the end of 2019, but I guess re-read weren’t counted, so I didn’t make 1000 until early January. Counting re-reads, that makes it an average of about 168 books a year since I started on Goodreads (during all of which I’ve had a full-time job.) If I do not buy any more books, or read any books I don’t own, or re-read any books, I will be 60 years old when I have read every book I own! Totally doable.

I've made my Goodreads challenge goal exactly half the years. Last year I set it ludicrously low, and then doubled it every time I met it until July. This year I’ve set it to last year’s total, but I think on the off chance I make it there by July I’ll just up it to that 168 average. (Having the Goodreads challenge really does help me; I know some people have been talking about how they need to let reading for fun be fun and not a chore, but if I don’t make it a chore I’m constantly telling myself I should be doing chores instead.)

Book 1000 was Baptism of Fire, one of the Witcher books which I am reading out of order. They are fine enough reads if you have missed reading quest fantasy that is really obviously based on someone’s tabletop rpg experience. Also a lot more canon f/f than I expected based on reading m/m fic for it: how did I make it that deep in the fandom without knowing Ciri was canonically into women? Anyway so far I mostly appreciate the total unwillingness to romanticize war even a little bit.

The first few books I finished this year went in the pattern: Comic book - library book - a book I’d been saving as a treat - a book I own - a book you do rather than read - a book that has been long-in-progress. That actually made a pretty good spread! I think I will try to use that pattern this year if I get stuck. (I am currently reading a library ebook about Margret the Adroit of Iceland; I'm not sure yet what the treat will be, maybe finally catching up on Golden Kamuy.)

( Some more stats from last year )

...And I had a set of overdue book reviews I was going to put in this post but I think I will put them off for later. Instead, have a to-read/watch/play list based on this year’s Yuletide collection (which I have still barely read in.) It's only about 1/10 of the fandoms in the collection! It's up to you to guess if any given fandom isn't on there because I've already started it or because I have no interest in it. :D

( This is a poll just because I like ticky-boxes and I've missed them )

Getting my end-of-year summary in by the end of January counts, right? Anyway the Chinese new year celebration isn’t even half over.

Also, I have a short-notice week off starting today due to building construction at work, and a ludicrous to-do list for it. So I think I’m going to try to post here once a day while I’m off to track that I am actually accomplishing things.

( Today I: )