The Sword and Laser discussion

Is it too soon to ask what people's 2015 reading goals/ideas are?
Have you settled on a goodreads goal for next year?
Are you planning to read more classics or expand your genres?
Are you going to try and read every Sword and Laser 2015 book?
Basically what are your reading plans for 2015?

I plan to continue reading what I like (mostly SF/F) and to schedule no more than a few books in advance at any time.

I kind of feel like Pinky and the Brain this time every year:

"What's our reading goal this year, Brain?"
"Same as it is every year, Pinky: we try to read the world!"

Actually, I try to read two "real" books starting with each letter of the alphabet. 52 weeks, 52 books. I always fall short. But trying is the important part. (Suck it, Yoda.)

This will be my first year coming up with reading goals.

I think its feasible, plan is to:

Read some classics that are shocking I've never read:

- Lord of the Rings (read the hobbit several times while young but never made it to LoTR)
- Hitchhikers Guide to the Galaxy (again never passed beyond book 1 when little)

Some tough stuff:
- Finally read Gravity's Rainbow after trying for 20 years
- Read as much of Malazan as possible

Some fun stuff:
- Finish Dresden Files from Turn Coat onward
- Dagger and Coin Series
- All the Sanderson I haven't read (everything except Mistborn and Stormlight #1 and #2)

Some non-fiction:
- Joseph Campbell
- Feynman

New releases (only planned through June):

January 6: Firefight (Reckoners Book 2)
January 13: The Providence of Fire (Chronicle of the Unhewn Throne Book 2)
February 10: The Autumn Republic (The Powder Mage Trilogy)
Feb 10 - Scott Meyer, An Unwelcome Quest
February 17: Half the World (Shattered Sea Book 2)
April 7 - Wesley Chu, The Rebirths of Tao
March 31: The Skull Throne (The Demon Cycle Series Book 4)
April 7: The Grace of Kings (The Dandelion Dynasty)
June 2: The Liar's Key (Red Queen's War)
June 2: Nemesis Games (The Expanse)

I don't have new different goals. Read at least 75 books. Read all the S&L picks.

I read so many series these days, there are always sequels to look forward too.

If anything, I want to read a little less next year. I blew by my 75 target this year. I'm not a fast reader. 75 would be good for me. Maybe 100. Maybe I'll participate less in my other group's stuff.

Lately life has destroyed my time/desire to read. So, this year I have set a very modest goal of a book a month. I've probably read that many books in the past few years without keeping track. Especially if I count audio books. But I'm going to try to make a concerted effort to make a list of 12 books to read this year and keep track. I'm sure I'll throw in a few more as I come across new ones.

I also tried to make a list that forces me out of my standard faire. A classic lit book, a classic sci-fi/fantasy, a few non fictions, and a re-read selection.

I'm going to do my yearly "try to read the next book in every series I have going." It's always fun to revisit the characters and the worlds I enjoyed, but keep getting shelved by new releases. I don't like to set a number goal though. I real almost everyday, unless I stay up to late playing a game (and even then I usually atleast get a couple pages done).

I was really happy with where I wound up reading-wise last year and hope to keep it up. Some highlights:

-A few years ago I realized I was reading almost completely male authors (>90%), this year it was much more even at 66%
-I'm reading about 75% genre, mixing it up.
-I'd like to read 50 books again.
-I felt I did a pretty good job of keeping up with the new releases this year, and read a lot of new interesting authors.

The only think I'd like to change is a read a lot of books that I liked, but not a lot of books that I LOVED. My number of 5 star books is lower than normal. Hopefully whatever I pick for my series next year I will really enjoy.

Attempt to read though Malazan.

Have my backlog not grow by more then 50 books.

I haven't really thought much beyond "read the silly number of books I picked up in the Black Friday Kindle deals". I have also just switched from a system of breaking up series to reading them one after the other (especially if the author has completed that series), so I'd like to finish up a few this year.

I would like to read more non-sf this coming year. That NPR list from the Quick Burns looks like a good place to start.

I'd like to read some more non-fiction. I only read 5 this year (though I'm working on my 6th right now).

My main goal for next year is to try and reduce my backlog of physical books by at least 25. This year I only reduced it by 15 out of 73 total reads (so far).

I just want to make a dent in my TBR pile. I also don't plan on reading too many group books, unless it's already on my TBR list or it's something I'm really interested in.

I usually don't set firm goals. But my intentions are to read more non-fiction books (I only read 7 this year), and to do more culling of my TBR pile as well. I'm going to try very hard to lem books that don't click for me, instead of trying to power through them.

Goal:

Just keep readin'. R-E-A-D-I-N.

(Sorry, apparently I have Dazed and Confused running through my head tonight.)

I'm not really sure what I want to do, beyond reducing my TBR list. I'll probably reduce my challenge to 75 books; I've had a blast trying to do 10 a month but there are a few other projects I'm considering taking on that will likely cut into the reading time.

I might try to read more nonfiction next year. Right now, motivation to read is not a problem, so I don't see any reason to set a read X books goal. I certainly don't want other parts of my life to suffer just because of an arbitrary reading goal.

My goals for 2015:

1) Read more owned books, less loaned books: I have a tendency to buy books, then never read them for favor of some new book that the library has. Right now I have over 300 books on my to-be-read list that I own (with another 200 books that I'll have to get from the library since they're sequels to some TBR books I've got).

2) More nonfiction: Back in 2009, I read 30 nonfiction books. Since then, I'm really lucky if I even break 10. Here's hoping!

3) Book Club picks: I'm in a real-life book club, too, and for both that and Sword & Laser, I always make a good faith effort for finishing book picks if only for discussion (that really hurt when I ended up reading The King of Elfland's Daughter, ugh). I won't necessarily reread a book, though, if we picked one I've read years ago. My RL club is doing The Lies of Locke Lamora as our January fantasy pick, but I don't want to reread it.

4) Possible series projects: I've done big (re)reading projects in the past, like all of Wheel of Time (Jordan/Sanderson) before the final book came out or the Honor Harrington series (Weber) or the Dresden Files (Butcher) & Company series (Baker) this year. I'm not sure what I might go for in 2015. Possibilities include the Malazan series (I read the first 7 + an Esslemont before), Gabaldon's Outlander series (I've read the first one), and I've been wanting to read Turtledove's awesome Videssos series in internal-chronological order.

5) Non-genre: Other than the nonfiction above, I might go for some more Dumas (mainly the rest of the Three Musketeers series) or some of the old Russian guys like Dostoyevsky or something. Les Miserables could be fun.

6) I always say more women authors, but that's not something I focus super hard on, just a desire that can influence a spur of the moment choice.

Get through the S+L and VF books that I didn't participate in and finish up the Discworld series!

Anja wrote: "Get through the S+L and VF books that I didn't participate in and finish up the Discworld series!"

Oh man, Discworld should be a project I add, too--I've read the very first two novels back in 2006 but nothing else.

David wrote: " I might go for some more Dumas (mainly the rest of the Three Musketeers series) "

They're worth reading, but are definitely of lower quality than Three Musketeers and absolutely lower than Count of Monte Cristo. On the plus side, they're free, and you'll pick up a sense of French life and history by reading them. I read the Victorian era translations and enjoyed them fine. I've reviewed those books if you are interested.

David wrote: "
Anja wrote: "Get through the S+L and VF books that I didn't participate in and finish up the Discworld series!"
Oh man, Discworld should be a project I add, too--I've read the very first two nov..."

Yeeeeeees. I find I need to space out Terry Pratchett. Similarly to Douglas Adams, I can only handle so much in a row. : ) Hence spacing it out with some S+L.

I have a few goals. My Goodreads goal is going to be 55 books. Most of those will be graphic novels. I want at least 12 of them to be novels (1 novel a month), and 3 of those to be Sword and Laser picks. I also want to get A Feast for Crows and A Dance with Dragons finally read, hopefully before Worldcon. I want to read at least 1 classic Hugo award winner, in addition to the majority of the Hugo nominees for 2015. I also want to read more books from my owned pile, instead of buying new books every time.

My book goals, along with everything else in life, will hinge on my acceptance to grad school. If I don’t get in I’ll stick with my 100 book reading challenge goal, if I do, it will drop to 50 (it’s impossible to read all that much for fun in grad school…).

I also want to get through my “books owned” pile, e-books, dead tree, and audio. I tend (like most here) hoard books and buy them well before I could reasonably read them.

I’m also looking to wrap up a few series that I started years ago (Honor Harrington, Earth Sea, and WoT) and add a few classics to my reading. I’m also looking forward to diving into a few new series (or at least new to me): Pern, Tao, Gentleman Bastard, to name a few. I also want to keep up with the S&L books; as long as they are something I am interested in reading.

I love looking at the fresh reading start of a new year! I’m sure all the book sales that will be going on over the next month will give me plenty to read for 2015!

Last year, I set my goal as 30 and read 24. This year I set it at 45 (after starting at 30 and getting way ahead of schedule) and I'm currently on 42. Maybe I'll find a happy medium and set mine for 40 next year. I typically read every S&L book, plus 1-3 of my own picks every month.
I've never set specific genre goals because I usually read a good mix of SFF, mystery, non-fiction, and spy thrillers, plus 1-2 "literary classics" a year.

This past year, I had numeric and non-numeric goals. I will hit my numeric goal, I'm one shy as of now. My non-numeric coals were to read books is already bought and either had in print, audio, or Kindle (try to read down that pile) and attempt every S&L pick, as well as keeping up with my SFF picks.

I didn't read as much as I wanted to off my tbr_2014 list but the other goals were hit.

I think for 2015, I'm not going to set a particular number (I'll just set it at 12 or something for the badge), but my emphasis will be:
1) S&L picks
2) SFF Audio books
3) series from my tbr list (which I need to create a new 2015 version, when I'm not icon my phone). I'd like to get deep into Robin Hobb, Jim Butcher, the Hounded series, finish New Sun/Earth cycle books...

So yeah, lots to read!

I have 36 books on my TBR shelf so I'd like to decimate those.

Along side this I'd like to continue to expand my historical knowledge of Central and Eastern Europe after my success this year at reading deeper into the Israel/Palestine conflict.

I'd also like to pick up some more Astrophysics books because I can't get enough of what happens up there!

I met my 2014 goal of 40 books (with some help from a few comic books and a kid's book), but my 2015 is going to be more focused on writing. I'm setting serious word count goals and trying to stick to them.

My biggest reading goal for 2015 has to do with diversity. Of the 41 books I read in 2014, only 6 were written by women. I'm going to try to do better with distribution in 2015.

Brock wrote: "My biggest reading goal for 2015 has to do with diversity. Of the 41 books I read in 2014, only 6 were written by women. I'm going to try to do better with distribution in 2015. "

Ya, this was me from a couple years ago. What I did was started to keep track of what I was reading, like "The last 2 books I read were written by men, time to switch it up for a book or two," and after a while it just became a habit.

My goal for 2015 is to read more short stories and novellas. I find as I've gotten older my tolerance for fantasy doorstoppers and multi-volume epics has dropped to almost none so I want to explore anthologies and other avenues of absorbing fiction in bite-size chunks.

Let me plug a fun reading challenge for 2015. Technically it's not a challenge. It's a dare! It's The TBR Double dog Dare put on by James Chester on his book blog. Here's a link: http://jamesreadsbooks.com/tbr-dare/

The idea is that during January 1 and April 1 you only read books you've already bought but haven't gotten to. You can make exceptions for book clubs. You can still buy books of course, you just can't start reading them until April when you have hopefully made a dent in you TBR pile.

It's a common complaint here on the Sword & Laser. "When will I ever get to read ALL THE THINGS?" Well, knocking off a few things that have been sitting around on your shelves for too long and causing reader guilt is a great way to start off the year! (S&L club picks excused of course!)

I won't be doing the GR challenge next year. I've decided that next year I want to read more diversely and not focus on quantity. I will still read the S&L picks and I have joined a Canadian Lit bookclub. But to achieve my main goal, I want to read at least 1 book a month by a diverse author. I even opened a challenge for it on my blog to hopefully have people join me. I find that having people with you makes challenges so much better. I will do as Library_jim and shamelessly add the link for the challenge

Get rid of as much of my TBR as possible. Read at least 45 books. More SCIFI, More classics etc.

I refined my personal goals for 2015:


60 - Total books.
25 - Books from physical Bookshelf Clearance
5 - Books from NPR Top 100 SF/Fan
2 - 800+ page Doorstop books
6 - Sword and Laser book club
1 - Complete Trilogy or Series
5 - Catch up on Urban Fantasy, Dresden, Anita Blake & Stookie
10 - New SF/Fantasy Authors
- Keep up with ongoing series that I am current on if new books come out.

Of course there are going to be several that fit into more than one goal category. I only put down 6 for S&L as that about what I can expect to already have in my collection or be able to easily obtain from the library.

Over half way through the year, so how is everybody doing with their 2015 reading goals?

I'm doing pretty well and expect to meet all my goals except for the '25 books from bookshelf clearance' category. I have only read 11 of my 25 goal to date. The one I am way ahead on is 'Read 10 new authors', where I have read 23 so far.

Copying my list from above I have added my current total after my goal.
60/49 - Total books.
25/11 - Books from physical Bookshelf Clearance
5/3 - Books from NPR Top 100 SF/Fan
2/1 - 800+ page Doorstop books
6/6 - Sword and Laser book club
1/0 - Complete Trilogy or Series (2/3 complete)
5/3 - Catch up on Urban Fantasy, Dresden, Anita Blake & Stookie
10/23 - New SF/Fantasy Authors

I never shared my reading goals so I'll copy them here. A few have to do with S&L but not all. I always set my reading goal number wise for 150 to allow some wiggle room, but I've hit 126 for 2015.

1. World Literature - Southeast Asia, Oceania, Australia - read a bunch of books! - I spent several months reading New Guinea and am just now moving on to Indonesia. I also have been cooking and baking from this region.

2. Mighty Tomes - Dhalgren, and maybe a return to War and Peace - I did read Dhalgren and am in the middle of rereading Gravity's Rainbow.

3. Spy novels and memoirs. More spies. - so far I've read 3 novels and 1 memoir, not as much as I'd like. I started but abandoned 1 translated novel.

4. Authors in translation - Elena Ferrante and Karl Ove Knaussgard - I read the first book of each autobiographical novel series. They were okay.

5. Read the books from authors I might meet. -I read one Chang-Rae Lee, finally read Nathan Ballingrud, and refreshed some Cat Valente. I interviewed Ann VanderMeer, sheepishly owning but never reading her marvelous anthologies.

I recommend this blogpost on books about lady spies.
:) http://historicallyaccuratesteve.tumb...

Anja wrote: "I recommend this blogpost on books about lady spies.
:) http://historicallyaccuratesteve.tumb..."
Ha, awesome! The genre does seem to be pretty male dominated.

I deliberately set my goal low (26 books) so that I'd be able to fit some gigantic books into the mix -- Ice & Fire or Malazan or some such. I blew past my initial goal, so I'll be reading some fat novels in the not-too-distant future.

So far I have 32 "real" books finished, with major gaps in Alphabet Challenge. So I've fallen short of my goal. Sigh.

Officially I've read 74 books this year, but I don't count art/photography books or graphic novels as part of my Challenge unless they're huge.

The good news is I have two books that sart with X and two that star with Z for next year's challenge, so I can get those out of the way early. Q, K and J titles that I'm interested in reading seem hard to come by, but I have to turn away S, T and C at the door.

I need to sort my books according to various categories and make a post about that. Does anyone else do this?

Trike wrote: "I need to sort my books according to various categories and make a post about that. Does anyone else do this? "

I haven't in the past, but really need to. I haven;t pulled from my TBR pile in ages and it just keeps getting bigger. Part of the problem in following along on 3-4 book clubs each year, I suppose.

I count everything I read/listen to. I'm working on tweaking my goodreads parsing app to break things down a bit more though.

I shelve my books quite a bit that lets me do a lot more statistical analysis than good reads offers. But the code is very custom to how I shelve my books.

I write mine down on a scrap of paper.

#NotKidding #OGReader

I'm a code monkey. I started an application last year when I got tired of trying to hand jam stuff into a spreadsheet. Paper would be worse than a spreadsheet. :-D

Too soon but I'll come back to it. :)

Trike wrote: "I don't count ... graphic novels as part of my Challenge unless they're huge."

If I excluded graphic novels, my count would be just 14 books read for the year. But counting everything, I am currently at 178 (with a few more still to be read). There has been a lot of comics to read this year. ;)

Trike wrote: "I write mine down on a scrap of paper."

I also keep a written record of what I read. Going on 10 years now, actually.

At 131 right now (once I finish a review), possibly a bit more as I check to make sure I didn't miss anything.

About 1/2 of those are "real" books the other 1/2 are light novels but I think the webfiction I read that counts as 0 or 1 for like a zillion words more than makes up for it.

Also I didn't make it at all farther in Malazan whelp, goal failure.

Yeah, one of my plans for the year was to reduce my target to 26 books to allow me to read/reread Martin or Erikson, which I never quite got around to. (So I bumped my target back up to 52.) Maybe next year?

My initial goal for 2015 was a book per week, 52 total. I hit my goal in April. So I added 52 more to it. Hit my new goal of 104 in July. Added 52 more. My final goal of 156 (3per week) was hit last night. Cutting it tight!
I did read a lot of manga this year, which I'm sure accounted for how I managed 156. But I still averaged 308 pages per book, so I say the manga totally counts to balance out super long books like Gone With the Wind, and A Dance With Dragons.
I also decided to pick up and read a few more classics, since my number of books read from (somebody's) list of 100 books you have to read before you die was only 24. So I read Jane Eyre, Emma, Pride and Prejudice, Animal Farm, 1984, Peter Pan, Alice's Adventures in Wonderland & Through the Looking Glass.
(For anyone wanting to read some classics but daunted by the tedious ones, 1984 and Alice were amazingly short, sweet, and to the point. Plus, I'm pretty sure Lewis Carroll was insane.)

For 2016 I will likely do the same, start with a goal of 52, expand as needed, and work my way through some more great classics.

My initial goal for 2015 was a book per week, 52 total. I hit my goal in April. So I added 52 more to it. Hit my new goal of 104 in July. Added 52 more. My final goal of 156 (3per week) was hit last night. Cutting it tight!
I did read a lot of manga this year, which I'm sure accounted for how I managed 156. But I still averaged 308 pages per book, so I say the manga totally counts to balance out super long books like Gone With the Wind, and A Dance With Dragons.
I also decided to pick up and read a few more classics, since my number of books read from (somebody's) list of 100 books you have to read before you die was only 24. So I read Jane Eyre, Emma, Pride and Prejudice, Animal Farm, 1984, Peter Pan, Alice's Adventures in Wonderland & Through the Looking Glass.
(For anyone wanting to read some classics but daunted by the tedious ones, 1984 and Alice were amazingly short, sweet, and to the point. Plus, I'm pretty sure Lewis Carroll was insane.)

For 2016 I will likely do the same, start with a goal of 52, expand as needed, and work my way through some more great classics.

Sry. I really hate when my phone double-posts.