Learning from 2023, and Reading Older Books: Some 2024 Reading Goals

I find it helpful to reflect briefly on what I’ve read in the year behind, as well as look forward to what I’m reading in the year before me.

For 2023, my reading goals were as follows:

• Read 150 books. A smaller goal than the 200 in 2022, in order to facilitate reading some longer stuff, as well as writing more reviews!
• At least 20% by non-white authors. I’m going to attempt this again.
• At least 30% by female authors. I’m determined to meet this target, one way or another.
• Write and publish, on blog or elsewhere, 50 reviews, of which at least 25 should be of books not written by white men like me.
• Read more than 50,000 pages.

But how did I do?

• Read 150 books // I read 177 according to GoodReads, plus at least one book that isn’t in GoodReads system – so a significant increase. This was in part down to reading some commentaries simultaneously – something I’m not going to do this year.
• At least 20% by non-white authors// Missed. 23 books were either by or edited/co-authored by non-white authors. 13.14% = requires intentional improvement.
• At least 30% by female authors. // Missed. 36 books were either by or edited/co-authored by women. 20.57% = also requires intentional improvement.
• Write and publish, on blog or elsewhere, 50 reviews, of which at least 25 should be of books not written by white men like me. // Done. 51 reviews, and matched the 25 goal.
• Read more than 50,000 pages.// Done. At the time of writing, Goodreads tells me I’ve read 67,559 pages.

I’m going to slightly tweak my reading goals for 2024, with two new ‘things’ to add in. Firstly, age of books – I’d like 10% of what I read (at least) to have been published before I was born (in 1990) – and intend to gradually increase that. To make that easier, I’ll ‘allow’ modern publications of older works – for example, I’m excited to dig into Stephen Charnock’s Existence and Attributes of God, which as two volumes will only count as one book! Secondly, rating of books. I like – and enjoy – logging my reading on GoodReads, but I think I am probably too generous in giving 4 or 5 out of five – in 2020/1/2/3, my average rating was 4.4 or 3.5, in 2019 it was 4.2. To my mind I’m either really good at choosing books (it’s possible!) that I will enjoy, or more likely I’m generally quite kindly disposed to books ‘doing what they set out to do’, even if I don’t like it as much as a 5/5 rating might imply. We shall see.

So, what are my reading goals for 2024? (With the caveat that, Lord Willing, my wife and I are expecting our third child soon! This may well slow things down)

• Read 150 books. This is a manageable goal – beatable, in fact. 
• At least 20% by non-white authors. Having failed to do this two years in a row, I am going to be quite a lot more intentional about this, and will probably set out a ‘to read’ pile more deliberately than in previous years. 
• At least 30% by female authors. This turned out to be harder than it looked – see comment above. My two 365 day devotionals are by or edited by women, so that is a helpful start!
• Write and publish, on blog or elsewhere, 55 reviews, of which at least 26 should be of books not written or edited by white men like me. I’ve upped my review target by 10%, largely because I’m not going to read many/any commentaries simultaneously so this should be easier. I was pleased to meet this goal last year – and this forces me to be more deliberate in protecting writing time.
• Read more than 50,000 pages. This should average out.
• Read at least 15 books published before I was born.
• Be more critical in my reviews/GoodReads ratings.

Some of these are qualitative, others quantitive. I’m excited to read more in 2024 – not least in digging into the Bible, which I’m planning to read through canonically this year. My excitement for that discipline has extended to racking up most of the commentaries I plan to work through this year…