2024 Reading Goals

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It’s the beginning of a new year, which means book accounts and readers all over the internet are talking about their reading goals for 2024. Some goals are simple, such as reading more books off their To-Be-Read list, while others are a bit extreme, such as not buying any new books in 2024. But some of the most intimidating can be committing to reading a specific number of books in only 12 months. 

Setting reading goals for the year is a fantastic way to explore reading throughout the year. It can keep you motivated to keep reading or break through slumps. It can help you open your mind to books you normally wouldn’t read. Yes, it can also help you get through your never-ending TBR list. Reading goals aren’t meant to be intimidating.

If you have never set a reading goal before, or you are looking for fresh ideas for goals in 2024, here is how you can start. We’ve put together some practical tips and suggestions to help you define, achieve, and enjoy your reading in 2024.

Step 1: Define Your Reading Goal Purpose

 Before you start estimating how many books you can read in a month or what genres you want to explore this year, take some time to figure out why you are setting a reading goal this year. Do you want to get back into reading? Challenge yourself intellectually. Learn a new skill, read a new genre, or diversify your bookshelf?

By moving beyond simply wanting to “read more books,” you can define your objectives, create a reading plan, and celebrate small successes along the way. This opens the door to a variety of different reading goals you can choose.

Step 2: Set a Realistic Reading Goal

Every year consists of 52 weeks and 12 months. Be realistic about the number of books you can comfortably read in a year. Consider your schedule, commitments, and reading speed. Think about how you can pace books out across the various weeks, perhaps making weekly or monthly targets. Not everyone can commit to reading 100 books a year. 

Consider setting goals outside of how many books you can read in a year. Here are a few popular examples of reading goals:

• Time spent reading: How many hours you spend reading a day, week, or month?
• Pages read: How many pages can you read in a year? This means you won’t have to worry about having enough time to read that 600-page fantasy novel you were recommended.
• Read more BIPOC/Women/LGBTQ authors: Diversify your bookshelf with authors you might not have heard of or aren’t promoted as much online. Marginalized communities, especially communities of color aren’t promoted in the same way as their counterparts.
• Read different genres: If you are normally a fan of fantasy, try some mysteries. Beach reads, try some science fiction. Thrillers? Read a biography.

Step 3: track your progress

There are countless ways you can track your reading progress. Some are as simple as writing it down, while others can be as complicated as an arts and crafts project. The point of tracking is to have a place where you can see your progress, celebrate your milestones, and reflect on the journey.

Many readers use a tracking app to catalog their books. This includes their TBR, their current reads, and their recently reads. Many of these apps have online communities you can join to find personal book recommendations, read reviews, and see what your friends are reading.

The key to reaching a reading goal is to make tracking your reads just as satisfying as finishing a book. What’s more, make sure to celebrate milestones along the way to your end goal. No matter how you track, come up with something that you will stick to and brings you joy.

Here are a few examples of ways readers track their books.

• Reading journal: This can be anything from a bullet journal to a scrapbook and can include any information you want to keep track of.
• Spreadsheet: The tech-savvy use spreadsheets to track their books, which allows them to make graphs and tables to show different information about their books.
• Create a vision board: Create a visual representation of the books you read over the course of the year. 
• Make a mini bookshelf: Crafty readers have created miniature versions of their books and displayed them on bookshelves, in Christmas ornaments, or even fishbowls.

Bonus Tips on Reaching Your Reading Goals:

• Join a book club or online book community. Groups help encourage reading, offer recommendations, and hold readers accountable to their goals. 
• Do a reading challenge. Theme your reads or try to read outside your box. Use these as little mini-goals.
• Attend bookish events. Listening to an author talk about their work can be very inspiring. Or, you can challenge yourself to read the book before the event. 
• Incorporate reading into other goals. Want to learn a new skill? Pick up a book. Improve your career? Perhaps a book. Learn to play a new game? Maybe there is a book about it.
• Create a TBR. What better way to motivate you to read more than having a list of books you are excited to pick up?! Add little notes to help you remember why you want to read it.
• Allocate time specifically for reading. Set aside an hour in the morning, or thirty minutes at night. Take a book on your lunch break. Read books to your children.

Books to get you started

To help you get started on your 2024 reading journey, here are a few book recommendations. If you were a fan of these popular 2023 reads, check out these other titles. 

Lessons in Chemistry

by Bonnie Garmus

#1 NEW YORK TIMES BESTSELLER - GMA BOOK CLUB PICK 
A BEST BOOK OF THE YEAR: The New York Times, Washington Post, NPR, Oprah Daily, Entertainment Weekly, Newsweek

Chemist Elizabeth Zott is not your average woman. In fact, Elizabeth Zott would be the first to point out that there is no such thing as an average woman. But it's the early 1960s and her all-male team at Hastings Research Institute takes a very unscientific view of equality. Except for one: Calvin Evans; the lonely, brilliant, Nobel-prize nominated grudge-holder who falls in love with--of all things--her mind. True chemistry results.

But like science, life is unpredictable. 

The Woman with the Cure

by Lynn Cullen

A riveting novel based on the true story of the woman who stopped a pandemic, from the bestselling author of Mrs. Poe.

In 1940s and '50s America, polio is as dreaded as the atomic bomb. No one's life is untouched by this disease that kills or paralyzes its victims, particularly children. Outbreaks of the virus across the country regularly put American cities in lockdown. Some of the world's best minds are engaged in the race to find a vaccine. The man who succeeds will be a god.

The Woman in Me

by Britney Spears

Named a Best Book of the Year by Elle, The Washington Post, Rolling Stone, NPR, Financial Times, Vanity Fair, and more!

In June 2021, the whole world was listening as Britney Spears spoke in open court. The impact of sharing her voice--her truth--was undeniable, and it changed the course of her life and the lives of countless others. The Woman in Me reveals for the first time her incredible journey--and the strength at the core of one of the greatest performers in pop music history.

Written with remarkable candor and humor, Spears's groundbreaking book illuminates the enduring power of music and love--and the importance of a woman telling her own story, on her own terms, at last.

The Housemaid

by Freida McFadden

Every day I clean the Winchesters' beautiful house top to bottom. I collect their daughter from school. And I cook a delicious meal for the whole family before heading up to eat alone in my tiny room on the top floor.

I'm Glad My Mom Died

by Jennette McCurdy

* #1 NEW YORK TIMES BESTSELLER * #1 INTERNATIONAL BESTSELLER * MORE THAN 2 MILLION COPIES SOLD!

Jennette McCurdy was six years old when she had her first acting audition. Her mother's dream was for her only daughter to become a star, and Jennette would do anything to make her mother happy. So she went along with what Mom called "calorie restriction," eating little and weighing herself five times a day. She endured extensive at-home makeovers while Mom chided, "Your eyelashes are invisible, okay? You think Dakota Fanning doesn't tint hers?" She was even showered by Mom until age sixteen while sharing her diaries, email, and all her income.

The Princess Diarist

by Carrie Fisher

This last book from beloved Hollywood icon Carrie Fisher is the crown jewel of ideal Star Wars gifts. The Princess Diarist is an intimate, hilarious, and revealing recollection of what happened behind the scenes on one of the most famous film sets of all time.

When Carrie Fisher discovered the journals she kept during the filming of the first Star Wars movie, she was astonished to see what they had preserved--plaintive love poems, unbridled musings with youthful naiveté, and a vulnerability that she barely recognized. Before her passing, her fame as an author, actress, and pop-culture icon was indisputable, but in 1977, Carrie Fisher was just a teenager with an all-consuming crush on her costar, Harrison Ford.

It Starts with Us

by Colleen Hoover

Before It Ends with Us, it started with Atlas. Colleen Hoover tells fan favorite Atlas's side of the story and shares what comes next in this long-anticipated sequel to the "glorious and touching" (USA TODAY) #1 New York Times bestseller It Ends with Us.

Lily and her ex-husband, Ryle, have just settled into a civil coparenting rhythm when she suddenly bumps into her first love, Atlas, again. After nearly two years separated, she is elated that for once, time is on their side, and she immediately says yes when Atlas asks her on a date.

But her excitement is quickly hampered by the knowledge that, though they are no longer married, Ryle is still very much a part of her life--and Atlas Corrigan is the one man he will hate being in his ex-wife and daughter's life.

This Woven Kingdom

by Tahereh Mafi

New York Times, USA Today, and Publishers Weekly bestseller! Clashing empires, forbidden romance, and a long-forgotten queen destined to save her people--Tahereh Mafi's first in an epic, romantic trilogy inspired by Persian mythology.

To all the world, Alizeh is a disposable servant, not the long-lost heir to an ancient Jinn kingdom forced to hide in plain sight.

The crown prince, Kamran, has heard the prophecies foretelling the death of his king. But he could never have imagined that the servant girl with the strange eyes, the girl he can't put out of his mind, would one day soon uproot his kingdom--and the world.

None of This Is True

by Lisa Jewell

INSTANT NEW YORK TIMES BESTSELLER

Celebrating her forty-fifth birthday at her local pub, popular podcaster Alix Summer crosses paths with an unassuming woman called Josie Fair. Josie, it turns out, is also celebrating her forty-fifth birthday. They are, in fact, birthday twins.

A few days later, Alix and Josie bump into each other again, this time outside Alix's children's school. Josie has been listening to Alix's podcasts and thinks she might be an interesting subject for her series. She is, she tells Alix, on the cusp of great changes in her life.

The Silent Patient

by Alex Michaelides

**THE INSTANT #1 NEW YORK TIMES BESTSELLER**

Alicia Berenson's life is seemingly perfect. A famous painter married to an in-demand fashion photographer, she lives in a grand house with big windows overlooking a park in one of London's most desirable areas. One evening her husband Gabriel returns home late from a fashion shoot, and Alicia shoots him five times in the face, and then never speaks another word.

Yellowface: A Reese's Book Club Pick

by R F Kuang

A Best in Fiction Book for 2023
INSTANT NEW YORK TIMES BESTSELLER - A REESE'S BOOK CLUB PICK

Authors June Hayward and Athena Liu were supposed to be twin rising stars. But Athena's a literary darling. June Hayward is literally nobody. Who wants stories about basic white girls, June thinks.

So when June witnesses Athena's death in a freak accident, she acts on impulse: she steals Athena's just-finished masterpiece, an experimental novel about the unsung contributions of Chinese laborers during World War I.

So what if June edits Athena's novel and sends it to her agent as her own work? So what if she lets her new publisher rebrand her as Juniper Song--complete with an ambiguously ethnic author photo? Doesn't this piece of history deserve to be told, whoever the teller? That's what June claims, and the New York Times bestseller list seems to agree.

Disorientation

by Elaine Hsieh Chou

NYPL Young Lions Finalist * Shortlisted for the VCU Cabell First Novelist Award * A New York Times Editors' Choice Book * A Best Book of 2022 by NPR, Vogue, Jezebel and Book Riot * A Malala Book Club Pick * A Phenomenal Book Club Pick

Twenty-nine-year-old PhD student Ingrid Yang is desperate to finish her dissertation on the late canonical poet Xiao-Wen Chou and never read about "Chinese-y" things again. But after years of grueling research, all she has to show for her efforts are a junk food addiction and stomach pain. When she accidentally stumbles upon a curious note in the Chou archives one afternoon, it looks like her ticket out of academic hell.

Tom Lake

by Ann Patchett

#1 NEW YORK TIMES BESTSELLER - A REESE'S BOOK CLUB PICK

In the spring of 2020, Lara's three daughters return to the family's orchard in Northern Michigan. While picking cherries, they beg their mother to tell them the story of Peter Duke, a famous actor with whom she shared both a stage and a romance years before at a theater company called Tom Lake. As Lara recalls the past, her daughters examine their own lives and relationship with their mother, and are forced to reconsider the world and everything they thought they knew.

The Paper Palace

by Miranda Cowley Heller

REESE'S BOOK CLUB PICK

INSTANT #1 NEW YORK TIMES BESTSELLER
It is a perfect August morning, and Elle, a fifty-year-old happily married mother of three, awakens at "The Paper Palace"--the family summer place which she has visited every summer of her life. But this morning is different: last night Elle and her oldest friend Jonas crept out the back door into the darkness and had sex with each other for the first time, all while their spouses chatted away inside. Now, over the next twenty-four hours, Elle will have to decide between the life she has made with her genuinely beloved husband, Peter, and the life she always imagined she would have had with her childhood love, Jonas, if a tragic event hadn't forever changed the course of their lives. 

Happy Place

by Emily Henry

INSTANT #1 NEW YORK TIMES BESTSELLER!

Named a Most Anticipated Book of 2023 by BuzzFeed

A couple who broke up months ago pretend to still be together for their annual weeklong vacation with their best friends in this glittering and wise new novel from #1 New York Times bestselling author Emily Henry.

Harriet and Wyn have been the perfect couple since they met in college--they go together like salt and pepper, honey and tea, lobster and rolls. Except, now--for reasons they're still not discussing--they don't.

They broke up five months ago. And still haven't told their best friends.

Love, Theoretically

by Ali Hazelwood

An Indie Next and Library Reads Pick!

The many lives of theoretical physicist Elsie Hannaway have finally caught up with her. By day, she's an adjunct professor, toiling away at grading labs and teaching thermodynamics in the hopes of landing tenure. By other day, Elsie makes up for her non-existent paycheck by offering her services as a fake girlfriend, tapping into her expertly honed people-pleasing skills to embody whichever version of herself the client needs.

Fractal Noise: A Fractalverse Novel

by Christopher Paolini

Instant New York Times bestseller

July 25th, 2234: The crew of the Adamura discovers the anomaly.

On the seemingly uninhabited planet Talos VII: a circular pit, 50 kilometers wide.

Its curve not of nature, but design.

Now, a small team must land and journey on foot across the surface to learn who built the hole and why.

CONCLUSION

Setting a reading goal is a great way to start off 2024. Just remember that reading goals should be flexible, relaxing, and achievable. Reading is supposed to be fun. Happy reading in 2024.