My aims for this year’s reading were threefold: more science fiction, popular science and re-reads. The results have been…varied.

In 2013 I read six SF books, eight if you include graphic novels. This year so far I’ve read seven SF books, so not a huge leap forward, but if I include graphic novels it’s 17. So it’s a win but it does feel a little bit like I cheated to get there.

Popular science I worked harder on. I even made it an official reading challenge. I did revise my aim down from one per month to 10 over the year and I’m currently reading number 10, so that’s another win! Well, as long as I finish this book it is. It’s looking pretty good. This challenge definitely stretched me beyond my comfort zone and helped me to feel much more knowledgeable about non-fiction in general. Which is fab. I even wrote about popular science for For Books’ Sake.

Re-reads though? Oh dear. I re-read two books this year. Which is two more than last year! But it’s still only two, which really doesn’t constitute a big fat tick. And with my beautiful library housing thousands of books that I kept because I want to re-read them, I really have no excuse. Well, there’s the TBR – that’s my excuse.

So for next year do I want something completely different or more of the same? Well I’d like to pick back up on translated reads definitely. For 2015 I’ve subscribed to Peirene Press as well as And Other Stories, which should help. Or just make my TBR bigger. One of those.

But the biggie in new challenges is that I am joining the Classics Club. I have given myself the goal of reading 50 classics in five years. The list of classics I intend to read is over here. I’ve tried to make sure there are books I’m looking forward to reading and books I’m a bit scared of on there, so it should be an interesting one! There were already a lot of classics on my TBR, so the challenge should also help with reducing that.

I should probably set a third aim. Three is a good number. Should I try re-reads again? Maybe I should return to my cookery book challenge, which is looking a little sad as it is. Or I could try something completely new…but what? Any ideas?