Book Blogging / Reading Resolutions 2011

I thought I should put together some of my book blogging and reading resolutions for 2011. I always try to set myself some targets as it's nice to see what you've achieved at the end of the year.  My blog will be just over 4 months old in January and I'm looking forward to a fresh year stretching ahead for me to make my blog even better and do heaps and heaps of reading.

So here are some of my resolutions:

1. To read 250 books 
This year I've read 215 books and I still have a couple of days to go.  My target was to read 200 so I'm pleased that I've managed to reach that.  That's the most I've read in the last couple of years and I think it's partly down to all the amazing books that have been out.  Also, since I started blogging, I've discovered so many new authors and new titles that I've added to my wishlist and nearly every other day, I find more, so my reading output has increased because I want to get to everything!  There's just never enough time in the day to read everything you want to!

I think 250 books sounds like a good target as I do like to try and increase the number I read each year.  I also want to try and make a big dent in my TBR pile which is literally taking over my house at the moment.

2. Complete blogging challenges 
For 2011, I've signed up for 3 blog challenges: YA Debut Author Challenge; British Books Challenge and YA Historical Fiction.  I've hoping to complete all of these but I need to go out and buy some of the books on my list first!

3. Become active on Twitter
I've used Twitter a little but I'm not very active on the site.  I'm going to try and make more of an effort to interact with people, publishers and authors and post links to my reviews. 

4. Read 12 classics
I set myself this target in 2010, but I only managed to read 5 classics (Under the Greenwood Tree by Thomas Hardy; Three Tales by Gustave Flaubert; The Picture of Dorian Gray by Oscar Wilde; Colonel Chabert by Honore De Balzac and The Spell by Charlotte Bronte).  I was trying for one per month, but a lot of the classics I have on my list are so long that I cheated a little and read some short ones.  I'm going to attempt this again though.

5. To be organised and schedule posts
I've found that one of the biggest challenges to book blogging is the amount of time that it takes.  It's not just writing posts and reviews, but also making sure to visit other's blogs and check out book related news.  I'm going to try to be a bit more organised this year and schedule some of my posts in advance so I'm not worrying about having to write them each day. 

6. Give my blog a makeover
I have absolutely no idea about using HTML and when I first set my blog up the design was very basic.  I'd like to have a go at freshening it up for 2011.

That should keep me pretty busy!!!