20 Books I Want to Read in 2020

I have the worst habit of not reading books I know I’m probably going to love. It’s almost as if I wanted to save them for the right moment. For example, it took me years to read Ancillary Justice when I knew that I would probably like it a lot. And I did, it was a great read, so why did I wait that long to pick it up?

This is pretty dumb considering that amazing books are released every single year and if I decide to “save them for later” each time, I’m never going to read any of them. In order to “force” myself to read those books, I decided to look at my huge TBR and pick books that I’m very excited about but that I haven’t read yet. To my surprise, in less than 10 minutes, I had already picked out 20 books that fit what I’m now calling my “Ancillary Justice syndrome”.

My goal with this list is straightforward : I want to read as many books on it as possible before the end of the year. Since it’s a long list, I don’t think I’ll manage to read them all but I’d like to at least read half of the books mentionned. (Spoiler alert: I’ve already read one book of the list in January and, as expected, I really liked it!)

Without further ado, here are the books I hope to read this year:

1. The Quantum Garden – Derek Kunsken (read in January)
2. A Memory Called Empire – Arkady Martens
3. Children of Ruin – Adrian Tchaikovsky
4. Do you Dream of Terra-Two? – Temi Oh
5. The Dispossessed – Ursula K. Le Guin
6. Hexarchate Stories – Yoon Ha Lee
7. The Rosewater Insurrection – Tade Thomspon
8. Fleet of Knives – Gareth L. Powell
9. Nemisis Games – James S.A Corey
10. Ancillary Sword – Ann Leckie
11. Luna: Moon Rising – Ian McDonald
12. David Mogo, Godhunter – Suyi Davies
13. Rogue Protocol – Martha Wells
14. The Monster Baru Cormorant – Seth Dickinson
15. Planetfall – Emma Newman
16. Blackfish City – Sam J. Miller
17. Semiosis – Sue Burke
18. In the Vanishers’ Palace – Aliette de Bodard
19. The Descent of Monsters – JY Yang
20. Endymion – Dan Simmons

As you can see, this list is full of sequels, I have the worst habit of starting a lot of series but never finishing any of them.  I’m excited about all of these books and I’m expecting some of them to be future favorites. I especially have extremely high expectations with the five following works:

Have you read any of the books mentionned here? What did you think about them? 🙂

2020 Reading Plans

To be perfectly honest, I debated making this post (which is why it is posted so late haha) because I completely suck at yearly goals.

First of, I’m not a believer of the “new year, new me” mindset. You can make change at any time of the year, not just at the beginning of the year. Also, I have the worst tendency to completely forget my goals after two or three months. 😅 However, I do love making lists and goals even if I don’t always follow them so… Here are a few goals and challenges for 2020! 😀

Reading goals

• Read 52 books

For a lot of people, this number might seem low but in 2019 I only read 48 books so I’m aiming for a couple more this year. One book a week on average should be doable even if 2020 is going to be as busy (if not more) as 2019. I’ll try to manage my time a bit better but if I read less that I expected, it’s not a big deal.

• Balance my different hobbies better

I’m somebody with a lot of different interests and hobbies but I struggle to balance my time between them. For example, if I’m a huge TV shows kick, I won’t do anything except watching shows for weeks and then I’ll get bored and switch to something else : music, books etc. It’s a bit annoying because I’m not very consistent with anything, I’m trying to get better at it but it’s pretty difficult.

• If I’m not in a reading mood, I shouldn’t force myself to read

It might seem in opposition with the previous goal but last year, when I was in a huge reading slump, I forced myself to read for a couple of months and I think it made the slump even worse. So, if in 2020 I don’t want to read for some reasons, I should just do something else until I actually want to read. Reading is a hobby and it should stay fun.

• Request and accept less ARCs from publishers and authors

I’m probably not the only book blogger with this goal but I really want to read less ARCs this year. I have hundreds of unread books on my (digital) shelves and I bought them for a reason. I would like to read more from my own collection and only accept books that I really, really want to read. I made a list of 20 books that I’m very excited about and I would like to read at least 12 of them before the end of the year.

Reading challenges

I have two main challenges this year.

• Participate in Imyril’s Contrition of a Bad SF Fan Backlist Bingo Challenge

Since I want to read more backlist titles, this bingo card is perfect! I would like to fill out the entire card, I haven’t read a lot of classic authors of the genre and I hope this push me to do so. 🙂

• Read the Arthur C. Clarke Award shortlist

The Clarke award is my favorite SF award and in 2016, 2017 and 2018 I read and reviewed all the shortlisted books. However, between the slump and how busy I was in last year, I didn’t do it and I kind of regret it now. So, in 2020, I’ll try to read the entire shortlist, I might not do individual reviews but at least want to make a few posts on the award with my thoughts on the books.

 

What are your goals and challenges for the year? 😀