Surveying the Battle Damage

So as a reminder to us all….

Here were my “Reading Goals” as outlined in January of 2018.

  1. Beat Haddi bloody…
  2. Read the books I HAVE… 
  3. Listen to at least 2 Audible books a month…
  4. Only buy books by authors of color.  

Well those are them paired down and here are the results of those highfalutin aspirations:

  1. Got an ass whoopin’…
  2. Read maybe 15 (out of 65) books that I already had on my shelves
  3. Listened to 18 total Audible books…don’t know how good you are at math, but that’s not 2 a month
  4. And after reviewing my book purchases (so Amazon and what I can remember based on the books I read this year…this is very rough folks) yeah didn’t do super great there either.
    Bought about 55 books (Audible included) and only 39 of those were by authors of color.  So you know, 71% but that’s not really anywhere close to “only.”

So on one hand, feeling pretty bad about what went down in 2018 and what makes me feel even worse is that I thought I had my act together and was crushing these goals I had set for myself.  Nice to live in a year of delusion from time to time, so on the other hand, I’m gonna let all this go and simply say this about 2018: even though I didn’t hit my goals at a 100% I am happy with my progress.  I really am. I read some great authors this past year and not one book do I actually regret finishing…not even Nelson Mandela.

And for some added bonus.  I wanted to expand the voices I read and 49% of the books I read in 2018 were by authors of color and 54% were by women.  These weren’t stated goals, but they both served to diversify the voices and perspectives I was exposed to throughout the year which is a huge win.

2018 was Haddi’s year.  Hands down…it was Haddi’s year, but I still managed to read some amazing material and push myself outside my comfort zone.  So, it wasn’t a total waste ;).

Now….what will those Reading Goals be for 2019?!?!?

I’ll keep you posted and until then…

Happy reading everyone!