Top Ten Tuesday

Top Ten Tuesday is a meme hosted by That Artsy Reader Girl. This week's topic is...

Reading Goals!

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Happy Tuesday! The start of each new year offers a fresh start, an opportunity to do things differently. As far as blogging, I am happy with my schedule and the amount of time I spend on this hobby. But with my increasing obligations, I find I need to make changes to my reading. 

1. Weekly TBR - I found I was not keeping up with my weekly TBR, and therefore, reduced it from five to four books a week. 
2. Audiobooks - My goal is one per week, but it would be great to increase that number. One is good though because it keeps me on track with my Goodreads Reading Challenge. 
3. Shelf Books - I am going to make a big push here. I was really disappointed to see that my percentage of shelf books read stayed flat from 2024 to 2025. When I started doing Books from the Backlog, I thought I would tackle more shelf books, but I mostly read books from my TBR that I borrowed from the library. This year, I am going to try and make this weekly selection a shelf book. So far, so good. 
4. Reading Challenges - My challenge post is going up on Friday, but right now, my goal is do less monthly challenges and more prompt challenges. I have shied away from prompt challenges in the past because there would be too many prompts I wasn't interested in, but I think I found a few that will work for me. 
5. Read more Hoopla books - Hoopla has a LOT of books that are on my TBR, but I don't really like reading on the app, and it was made even worse on my Fire. I got a tablet for Christmas, so I will see if I like reading on that more than my Fire. 
6. ARC requests - This may be controversial, but I am only going to request books by authors I have previously read. I got burned too many times last year, and I really like my review books to be hits. This may help me accomplish that goal. 
7. ARC requests (part 2) - Every year, I say I am going to limit my ARCs. I didn't do too bad last year, but I had some months with way too many books publishing. This year, I am going to try and get most of my ARCs from auto-approvals or widgets sent to me. I find that I can get a LOT of books from my library. I don't need to have a million ARCs to review. My percentage of ARCs read went from 32% in 2024 to 28% in 2025. Some progress was made here, but I can do better. 
8. Recommendations - I could be more open to recommendations from people I know. Access to a book is the biggest determinate as to if I will read it or not, but I also tend to rely on myself when selecting my books. Maybe someone could find some gems for me.  
9. Debuts - I used to read so many debuts and that number has dropped significantly. Maybe it's because I am reading less, maybe it's because I got burned too many times, but I really want to try to read at least 24 debuts this year. 
10. Reviews of audiobooks - I really need to take some notes or something. I always love when people talk about the production quality or narration of an audiobook, but I never pay close enough attention. I would like to try and be more attentive to such details. 

Goals for 2026?
Let us know in the comments!