Myra here.
2019 was a pretty eventful year for me and my family. We moved halfway across the world to the United Arab Emirates after having lived in Singapore for eleven years. It was undoubtedly a huge decision that also entailed a great deal of preparation: around 352 boxes thereabout in a 12 foot container. It comes as no surprise that I was not able to achieve my reading goal for 2019, which was to read 365 books in total.
I have read a total of 257 books, across 29,476 pages. Here is a breakdown of the books I read across genres:
I do not know why my categorization does not tally with what Goodreads indicates to be my total number of books, but I refuse to obsess about it now.
The range of the books that I read in 2019 can be seen here – from the shortest book The Cloud Princess by Khoa Le to Min Jin Lee’s Pachinko which is 537 pages long.
Here’s hoping that my 2020 would be a better reading year, once we gradually settle into our new home, and adjust to the weather, the people, the place.
Reading Plans for 2020
A few days ago, we announced that we are doing a #ReadIntl2020 reading theme throughout the whole of 2020. It is going to be our year of international literature.
We are pleased to share that we have also come up with quarterly reading themes that are in keeping with this larger, overarching theme.
January – March: Otherworldly Realms – Portals To Fantasia
We thought it would be good to start the year with some much needed escape from the ‘real’ world (whatever that means) – and take a leap into unknown, fantastical lands that live in an imagined, otherworldly plane.
April – June: The World In Books
In 2017, we did a books-about-books reading theme. We thought that it would be good to revisit this lovely immersion into the world of words. Anything that pertains to the joy of books and reading, we hope to feature during the second quarter of the year.
July – September: Comic Mania
We are crazy over comics – and there are just so many out there that we haven’t gotten around to reading yet. This quarterly reading theme would provide us with the perfect excuse to finally hunt them down and feature them here.
October – December: Voices From The Fringe – Human Rights And Social Justice
For the last quarter of the year, we hope to surface the voices of the silenced – narratives from the margin. We end the year by empowering the marginalized, by highlighting human rights and social justice in the books that we hope to share with you all here.
How about you? What are your reading goals/ reading plans for 2020? We’d love to hear about them.
Gathering Books 
Great challenge, I’m signed up for more than I can probably do, so unfortunately cant commit this year to yours. Happy 2020!!
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