Top Ten Tuesday: Bookish Goals For 2013

I've missed the last three Top Ten Tuesdays in a row, which are hosted by The Broke and the Bookish, but I'm back on blog updating track and determined not to include Chuck Wendig on this list!  That aim should be easy to accomplish this week, as the topic is all about my bookish goals for 2013.

1. Stop ordering so many books from the library.  I've already been on an ordering binge, and it's good to support your local library, but I need to limit how many books I reserve each month in order for me to achieve goal no.2.

2. Read more books from our own bookshelves.  I have about 15 books that I have bought over the last two years that haven't been read because of my library addiction.  This is the year that I will read and conquer!  Also, I plan to read all the interesting looking supernatural anthologies that my mum owns before she passes them on to make more room! 

3. Update blog at least three times a week.  Last year I managed to update my blog more than I did in 2011 (with 90 posts compared to 38), and I want the same for this year.  I'm not going to be strict with this goal, as life always throws up surprises, but if I had around 150-160 posts by the end of the year I'd be happy.

4. Purchase more books from independent shops.  This was one of my goals for last year, but I arrived home after my Christmas holiday to find that my town's only non-second hand bookstore was closing!  It was back to Waterstones, who I was becoming increasingly dis-satisfied with, especially after they depleted their Horror and Paranormal sections and only seemed to stock 50 Shades of Grey  (I walked in one day and I kid you not, there was at least four areas in the shop of which the series could be found.  I know it was popular and got people to actually buy a book again, but just please...one shelf would have been enough!).  However, sometime in the spring/summer a new, independent, books/stationary store popped up exactly where the old one used to be.  I fully intend to spend my book voucher/money there this year, while also purchasing books from the two excellent secondhand book sellers we have in town.

5. Try to read and finish a book on my KindleFire.  I'm still not sold on the whole e-reader thing.  While I've managed about 100 pages before, I think this has to be the year that I get with the times and read a novel entirely via my Kindle. 

6. Find a YA with absolutely no romance!  I'll be the first to admit that I have, in the past, been a YA book snob.  While there are exceptions to this rule, and indeed my snobbery subsided in 2012, my main problem with YA was that it was too soppy.  The girl was always mooning over two boys that she had just met and couldn't quite decide which one loved her more.  This post on instalove by Christina over at A Reader of Fictions pretty much sums up everything that I hated about the Young Adult fiction I had been reading.  Therefore, this year my quest is to find books without any romance and then tally them up at the end of the year and perhaps create a fancy pants graph and maybe a 'no-ro' button.

7. Embrace the book blogging community and comment on other people's blogs more.  I'm shy in real life, and I'm just as shy on the Internet.  I say or type things and they come out wrong but you know what, as long as it's not mean or spam, who cares?  I started doing Top Ten Tuesdays at the end of last year as a way to find out what other bloggers were up to and through it I've found some great blogs and had some nice comments, too. 

8. Recommend books to friends, and don't be afraid to lend them to friends.   A friend has lent me two books.  She lent them to me in October and I still haven't read them.  I am going to read them this month, but I'd love to lend her some of the books that I've read as I think she'd rather enjoy them.  Only problem is, the majority of my books come from the library!  Hence, this goal is really about buying more books...any excuse, I know! 

9. Do something on World Book Night.  I wish that I had been a giver on World Book Night last year, but I couldn't think of a good place to give them out to put on my application form  (Annoyingly, I was travelling to Norwich that evening, so I could have easily left them as a trail of breadcrumbs on my journey - if only I was psychic!).  This year I'm not as passionate about any of the books being given so I've not applied but I'd still like to attend an event or maybe on second thoughts I'll just apply...

10. Read more.  I read just over a hundred books in 2012, and I could have read more if I cut down on my 'staring into space' time.  Also, if I read more, I can get more books out of the library without feeling guilty!



So that's my long-winded list of goals and reasonings for 2013, what are yours?