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My goal for 2020 was to read 52 books. I read 20. 

I'm proud of this and I'm not. While I don't like not meeting goals, 52 books was arguably too ambitious. I probably haven't read 52 books in a year since I was in middle school, and now that I have to do things like work and feed myself and be an actual adult, a book per week is a lot. 

On the other hand, I'm positive I could have read more. My reading definitely stalled for weeks (and in some cases, months) at a time when I got stuck on a couple particularly dull non-fiction reads, and I could have easily set the NF aside and tried a breezy novel instead. I also spend more time than I care to admit scrolling through junk-- instagram, twitter, buzzfeed, random new articles. None of that mindless scrolling is fulfilling or joy-sparking or even all that informative, to be honest. I'd rather read a book instead. 

All that's to say, this is what I read in 2020:

• Why We Sleep- Matthew Walker*
• Where the Crawdads Sing- Delia Owens
• Educated- Tara Westover*
• The Great Believers- Revecca Makkai*
• Born a Crime- Trevor Noah*
• Normal People- Sally Rooney
• Whisteblower- Susan Fowler
• The Dutch House- Ann Patchett
• Quiet-Susan Cain
• Circe- Madeline Miller
• When Blood Breaks Down- Mikkael Sekeres
• Red at the Bone- Jacqueline Woodson
• White Fragility- Robin DiAngelo
• The Mothers- Brit Bennett
• The Vanishing Half- Brit Bennett*
• Between the World and Me- Ta-Nejhisi Coates
• Such a Fun Age- Kiley Reid
• Nothing to See Here- Kevin Wilson
• Anxious People- Fredrik Backman
• The Invisible Life of Addie LaRue- V.E. Schwab

*5/5, would recommend.

8 NF, 12 F. I usually try to alternate F/NF, but my rhythm got a bit out of whack due to some longer, duller NF reads. I still want to finish these, by the way. Just because something is boring doesn't mean it isn't worth reading and learning about. That's part of the reason I'm not super bummed about not meeting my goal-- if I wanted to easily read 52 books in a year, then I'd just fly through a bunch of beach reads, thrillers, and fluff. Some books take more time, and that's okay. 

In looking back at this list, I'm struck that most of my 5/5 reads were relatively early in the year. In fact, my favorite NF (Why We Sleep) and my favorite fiction (The Great Believers) were in the first 4 books of the year! Perhaps that's another reason why my reading fell off the rails-- when the books I read are good, I want to read more of them. 

Reading goals for 2021:

• 26 books for the year. I'm so tempted to write 52 again because, dream big, no? But I think doable > dreamable for now. 
• If I don't like something, I should stop reading it. It doesn't have to be a permanent stop (although that's okay to), but this definitely tends to slow my reading. I need to be less stubborn here.
• Instead of alternating fiction (which I've done approximately forever), I'm going to aim for 15 minutes of NF per day, after which I can switch to fiction if I want. I've never really been a multiple-books-at-once sort of reader, so we'll see how this works.
• Audiobooks! This is a big opportunity. Usually if an audiobook is at all good, I abandon ship and download the Kindle version because I'll get too inpatient to finish it (I even did this with The Dutch House, which I didn't particularly like) but I want to learn to commit. I have at least 20-30 minutes of commute time per day-- this will add up.