My Reading Goals for 2022

In the online book community a new year always means one thing: New year, new reading goals! In the past week I saw numerous posts of people who announced their reading goals for 2022. Before I joined the bookstagram community I didn’t even know such a thing as reading goals existed – although ironically setting a reading goal for myself was actually why started book blogging (You can read about that here).

While reading goals might not work for everyone, I personally like them because I like to challenge myself a little. However, I never see them as an obligation or feel pressure to complete them. After all reading is a hobby for me and hobbies are supposed to be fun, right? In the end what matters more for me than a certain or number of books is whether I enjoyed what I read or not – and if I did, everything is fine. Still there are some reading goals for 2022 that I’d like to achieve (if possible).

The Numbers: How many Books I want to read

Number-wise my reading goals for 2022 are the same that it has been in the past two years. I want to read at least one book a month for fun. A total of twelve books a year might not seem much but some months I have to read so much for uni that squeazing in even one fun book is a challenge. I’m also just a slow reader and sometimes when life gets busy I take a break from reading for a few weeks. So one book a month is a goal that seems manageable to me and doesn’t create too much unrealistic expectations or pressure.

Last year, I didn’t achieve that goal. Although I read at least one book every month, there was one month when I read exclusively books that were on my uni curriculum that semester. So I actually did not complete this challenge. However, I still enjoyed what I read that month for my class on Virginia Woolf, especially “Mrs. Dalloway“. So it doesn’t really feel like a failure to me.

The World: Challenging myself to read more geographically diverse

Just like last year one of my reading goals for 2022 will be too read more geographically diverse. When I first joined the online book community I came to realize how extremely limited the geographical scope of my reading habits is. Almost all the books I read were from Western European or North-American countries. After that realization I decided that I really need to broaden my literary horizon.

To accomplish reading more geographically diverse I joined the “Reading Women Around the World” challenge created and hosted by Bianca (@mybookworldtour). The goal of this challenge is to read at least one book from each country around the world that was written by a woman. Personally I decided to adjust the challenge a little and also include books by non-binary and trans authors on my personal book world tour but I love the concept of the challenge nevertheless.

I still have about 180 countries ahead of me. So it will most likely take me a decade or so to complete it but this is something I want to work towards in 2022. Since I just began my master’s in postcolonial studies I’m also optimistic that my reading horizon will broaden a lot due to my studies.

The Language: Reading in a Third Language

(Will I ever accomplish that goal?)

Last but not least, the third of my reading goals for 2022 is to read a book in a third language. That was also my goal last year and I didn’t complete it because (to be honest) I didn’t even try. At the moment I’m reading in English and German, my mother tongue. But I also really want to start reading in Portuguese. I’ve been learning Portuguese for a few years now and I also lived in Portugal for a while. Still I’m a bit scared of attempting to read my first book in Portuguese because it’s just much more demanding and difficult to read in a language that I started learning so late in my life.

Do you also have any reading goals for 2022? And in how many languages do you read? Let me know in the comments! If you enjoyed this post, you can find more posts about reading here or you can subscribe to my newsletter to get notified when there’s a new post.