Minor Thoughts from me to you

For 2016, I want to shift my reading focus a little bit. I find and read a lot of longer articles on the web, but I'm often conflicted between spending lots of time reading in-depth reporting and opinions vs reading enough books to meet my reading goals.

I'm going to drastically lower my Goodreads reading goal: from 70 books down to 40 books. It's easy to hit a high reading goal when I'm reading mostly science fiction and fantasy. It's harder to do when I'm reading more literary novels and non-fiction. This lower reading goal will give me the space to read more on the web, read longer books, and read slower books than I ordinarily would.

Here are my 2016 goals (and the corresponding reading list).

More Literary Fiction

I enjoyed the experiences I had with literary fiction last year. I'll do more of it this year. The key seems to be finding books that are long on the human experience and short on American middle-class angst. I'll keep an eye out and add them to my reading ideas list as I find them.

Non-Fiction

Since I completely failed at this last year, I'm going to take another run at it this year. My list of potential books was good, it was just my execution that stunk. I'll copy over everything from last year's list to this year's list.

Fix the Oops

Last year, I listed Jack Vance on my goals list. I had been wanting to read Jack McDevitt too, although I hadn't listed him in my goals. Unfortunately, I went to my reading list and added a bunch of books by Jack McDevitt and none by Jack Vance. Oops. This year, I'll actually read some books by Jack Vance.

Enjoy Comics

Adam's been feeding me a list of recommended comics and graphic novels. I've also run across a few on my own. I'll actually read some of them this year.

Hard Science Fiction

I'm still having a hard time consistently finding good hard science fiction novels. I'm going to continue to look for them and read them as I find them.

Finish the 2014 and 2015 Goals

In 2014, I wanted to read the Culture novels and the Wheel of Time series. I made good progress, but didn't finish either series. I'll continue to work through them again in 2016. I also plan to finish reading the Alex Benedict series from the 2015 reading ideas list.

I also still want to re-read some of my favorite books.

Interesting Hooks

I know I'm going to come across interesting sounding books as I go through the year. I might as well make it a goal to read some of them.