Reflecting on my 2024 reading journey
Intro
Reflecting on an entire year requires the time and effort to reflect on the whole year. Achievements of the first months tend to be quite invisible to me and my perception of the year tends to be colored by the last months of the year. Yet, I feel I have done pretty well for the year; and while I did not have many reading hard goals, I find that I have done something uniquely satisfying to me.
My biggest pet peeve is that I am rarely capable of sticking to a plan for an entire year. What I should be doing, in general, is dividing the year by quarterly goals and I might actually implement this journey for 2025 (even if I have already published my 2025 goals, here).
A new power unlocked for me. But how long will it last?
And it is a first for me: I have always struggled to finish series.
I initially thought my struggle was connected with the fact I wanted to spend as much time as possible in the middle of series, allowing my own find to create my own character, my own version of events. Yet, I think there is something else brewing there: specifically, earlier in the experience of a genre, and specifically around fantasy for me, there is the need to continue exploring, there is more interest in sampling new things rather than stick to the experienced one.
And I started changing this trend in 2023, experiencing the high of finishing series. And 2024 was the pinnacle - to date - of this process.
I initially thought it is accountability - which to some extent is true. I forced myself to finish series before starting new ones. It is not an easy to manage it, especially when a few of the series span over 9 books or more. And I still struggle with it; I don’t think I found the perfect balance just yet. In fact, even in the last days of the year, I have been starting series (whether fantasy or not) and I could barely stop myself.
However it is progress and I hope, over time, to be more focused on finishing series.
I mentioned 2024 was my best completing series year yet; to be more specific:
The Expanse
The farseer trilogy
Crescent city
Empire of the wolf
Heartstrikers
DFZ
DFZ Changeling (and yes, these three series belong to the same world but there are different dynamics and characters involved, each very interesting!)
Bloodsworn saga
The Scholomance
The witch’s compendium of monsters
The Lord of the Rings
The stormlight archive
The liveship traders.
And I have started, with an aim to continue and finish the series early, with:
Shadowmarch
Temeraire
A time of dragons
The realm of the Elderlings (and while Robin Hobb conveniently made the series digestible in bite sizes!)
Green rider (although my reading progress is dictated by publication of the special editions by The Broken Binding, so I am in no rush to finish).
So, how many books did you read?
Reading more than 140 books and that felt great. Some of them pretty thick (and the longest was Wind and Truth by Brandon Sanderson) and shorter. And yes, before you ask, some of these books are consumed as audiobooks.
And to cater to my 2025 100 fantasy books goal, I have decided to increase my reading goal by 1 every time I read a non-fantasy book. I am curious to see what happens next!
Some new information about myself - interesting to look at it in hindsight
I already spent time on my biggest achievement - in my own eyes - of the year, completing series and I found out that I prefer finishing series rather than having them living them rent free in my head. They still live rent free in my head but I also know what happens to everyone, positive and negatives.
I also confirmed a pattern: I struggle reading between August and October, depending on the year. Sometimes I can power through new things, new experiences but it is clearly a period of time in which I struggle to read. And that’s fine, I should be able to work around this.
I am looking forward to know what I will do next year to manage this!
Other nuggets that make me happy and I will continue to build on
There are also to more things that make a difference for me in an innovative way for me. But also, it reminds me of what my best way of absorbing information has always been: listening to information.
So my first nugget - and I want to embrace it instead of feeling ashamed, based on what others’ opinions are - is that immersive reading is truly my thing. I love sitting at my desk or on my favorite sofa and just read while listening to the story in my ears. For clarity, I often read out loud to myself. I have always learned the best by summarizing information and by repeating it to myself, out loud.
I still feel judged by family members (or family adjacent) and from many community members online. The reality is that I do not care at this point. I care only about the fact that I love immersive reading. It allows me time to digest information better than before. And I will keep this process going for myself and my own benefit.
On top of immersive reading, there is one thing I love doing: listening to audiobooks while working out. It has been one of the most rewarding experiences. And while it might not seem much, I am training for a half ironman; this entails that I have a ton of time on my feet to make this happen!
And no, I do not listen to book while riding outside. I do when I am riding indoors (which in winter is a very likely scenario!) and this allows me to spend quite a lot of time in fictional stories.
The only stories that I would not listen to only are the stories I want to take notes while reading. My reading journal, incidentally, is going great.
2024 also gifted me new authors I die for. The first one is T. Kingfisher: her uniqueness in fantasy stole my heart and now I am aI am ready to read her books, always. I will want to explore more of her works in 2025 and beyond! Also, in the same league of unique brand of fantasy, I have Genoveva Dimova!
Still in the uniqueness category - although in this case, I think I know how to brand it which is horror, there is Christopher Buehlman. While I really enjoyed this The Blacktongue Thief, I can read his books only when I am in a certain mindset and I cannot wait to do so!
In sci-fi, I have two names, one a long time fantasy favorite, stealing my heart in sci-fi, and that is Adrian Tchaikovsky; and the second is China Miéville. And if you read his books, you know how quirky they are.
For thriller/crime, I have two names: C.J. Box and Marc Cameron.
Truly a magical year to getting to know new authors who can inspire me to be even more dedicated to the reading habit than before!
Last little thing that I explored prior to 2024 but I got a real taste for it in 2024 and a bit better understanding as to how to handle it - although I need to do a bit more work in this respect. Collecting special editions. Right now, I really have one place where the special editions produced are top notch, The Broken Binding. I will explore other special editions moving forward!
What are your favorite reflections for 2024?
