All Books Aloud

Should you set a yearly reading goal?

• Elizabeth Brookbank & Martha Brookbank • Season 1 • Episode 8

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Happy New Year! Who doesn't love a good year-end round up?! Join us as we talk about our year in reading, our favorite books of 2023, and what we're looking forward to reading in 2024. We discuss the pros and cons of setting reading goals, complete with research that will not only let you off the hook with your yearly reading goal (if that's what you want) but will also get you out of having to walk 10,000 steps a day :)
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Books we talk about in this episode:  

2023 reads we haven't talked about on the podcast:

  • Someone Else’s Shoes by Jojo Moyes 
  • Part of Your World by Abby Jimenez 
  • Ready Player One by Ernest Cline 
  • In The Likely Event by Rebecca Yarros 
  • Homegoing Yaa Gyasi 
  • A Secret Sisterhood: The Literary Friendships of Jane Austen, Charlotte Brontë, George Eliot, and Virginia Woolf by Emily Midorikawa, Emma Claire Sweeney, Margaret Atwood (Foreword)
  • Under the Henfluence by Tove Danovich
  • The Hobbit, Fellowship of the Ring, Two Towers by J.R.R. Tolkien
  • The House in the Cerulean Sea
  • A Rip Through Time by Kelley Armstrong

Our favorite books of 2023:

  • Happy Place by Emily Henry
  • Romantic Comedy by Curtis Sittenfeld

Books on our TBRs for 2024:

  • Birnam Wood by Eleanor Catton
  • 10 Things That Never Happened by Alexis Hall
  • The Cazalet Chronicles by Elizabeth Jane Howard
  • Death Comes to Marlow by Robert Thorogood
  • Song of the Huntress by Lucy Holland
  • 1000 Words: A Writer's Guide to Staying Creative, Focused, and Productive All Year Round by Jami Attenberg
  • The Paris Novel by Ruth Reichl
  • The Very Secret Society of Irregular Witches by Sangu Mandanna
  • Main Character Energy by Jamie Varon
  • My Life in France by Julia Child
  • Rebecca by Daphne du Maurier
  • The Fragile Threads of Power (Threads of Power #1) by V.E. Schwab
  • Ruthless Vows (Letters of Enchantment #2) by Rebecca Ross
  • House of Flame and Shadow (Crescent City, #3) by Sarah J. Maas
  • Funny Story by Emily Henry
  • Thy Empyrean (The Empyrean #3) by Rebecca Yarros
  • Le Fay (Morgan Le Fay #2) by Sophie Keetch

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Sources listed in the order they appear in the episode:    

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Intro and outro music: "The Chase," by Aves.

Do you have thoughts, questions, or ideas for future episodes? Email us at allbooksaloudpod@gmail.com. And if you want to learn more about the podcast, visit our website at allbooksaloudpod.com.

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And if you'd like to see more bookish content from Martha & Elizabeth, follow us on Instagram and TikTok @allbooksaloudpod.

Read on!

[All Books Aloud intro and theme music]

Martha: Hey Liz.

Elizabeth: Hi, Martha. How are you? 

Martha: I'm good. I'm excited to talk about our topic today, which is should you set a reading goal, the pros and cons of reading goals, and we're going to review our year of reading in 2023 and how we felt about it, our favorite books, and then also look forward to [00:01:00] 2024 and some of the books we might read this year.

Elizabeth: Yeah, it's exciting. Set ourselves up for a good year.

Martha: So, I think we're just going start with some of the books that we love this year that we didn't really get a chance to talk about.

Elizabeth: Yeah, because we only talk about, the books that we're reading at the moment that we happen to record, so if we're thinking about our year in reading, there's definitely going to be some books that we haven't gotten podcast.

 I will start us off. I don't get through quite as many books as you, so there aren't a ton that I haven't talked about on the podcast, but there are a few. 

 I read early in the year, which is maybe why I didn't talk about it on the podcast, a book called A Secret Sisterhood, The Literary Friendships of Jane Austen, Charlotte Bronte, George Eliot, and Virginia Woolf. Which I probably don't have to explain by this point why I was interested in that book.

 It was written by two women who are themselves friends, so it [00:02:00] was really, a cool way that the authors interacted with their subjects. It's by Emily Midorikawa and Emma Claire Sweeney, and there also is a foreword written by Margaret Atwood, which I enjoyed.

Martha: Wow.

Elizabeth: And this book I thought would be interesting to mention because it's nonfiction, but it very much has a reading doorway, which is character, because it's sort of biography, it's not a traditional biography where the author tells the life of one person, but you learn about the lives of the different, classic women authors , that they're talking about through their description of their friendships with other women in their lives who were not famous literary figures.

 So for Jane Austen, there was this, governess that worked not for her because she didn't have kids, but for, one of her brothers. And so they weren't quite the same social class, but they very much had [00:03:00] lots in common and they. Wrote letters throughout their lives talking about being writers, but it's something that is not very well known because it's one of the things that her family and specifically her sister, got rid of a lot of the letters that mention this woman.

And there's some speculation that maybe it's because it wasn't, entirely appropriate for them to have, , a really close relationship because this woman is technically governesses are a weird thing in the 19th century. They have, this weird They're not quite servants, but they're also not quite not servants.

So anyway, I'm going into the weeds, but , it was a really great book. I liked it a lot, but also I thought it was interesting because it definitely did have a doorway, which is character. Whereas one of the other nonfiction books I read this year, which I think I mentioned on the podcast, but didn't talk about very much, called Under the Hen Fluence by Tove Djanovich, which is all about keeping chickens.

Martha: Mm hmm.

Elizabeth: I wouldn't say that that one does have a doorway, really, nonfiction doesn't always have a doorway. It doesn't always fit into [00:04:00] that same story structure that fiction does. And so I just thought that was something that was interesting to mention.

Martha: Yeah, it's more like instructive than anything. Maybe.

Elizabeth: there was a little bit of instruction. It was also a social history of chickens. There was a lot of. , how we got to a place where people were keeping backyard chickens again, because it has come full circle. People used to have chickens in their yard, 
Even people who weren't technically farmers, people had a backyard garden, and they would have chickens, and especially women, it would be a way that women would be able to earn money when they didn't work because they had children and they were in much more of a traditional patriarchal society, right, where men would go out and work and women would stay home.

But it was one of the ways that women were able to make money on the side is by having hens and then selling the eggs. So it was really interesting. There were a lot of different aspects to it that I might relate to. , interest areas of mine, but it didn't really fit into one of the doorways, as nonfiction [00:05:00] often doesn't.

 But biography and memoir very much does fit into character. And other nonfiction books that I could think of, fit into story. Often narrative nonfiction about historical events. There was one that came out this year that was about, I think, The Mutiny on the Bounty. And the way that the author told the story was very It was almost meant to read like a thriller,

Martha: Mm hmm.

Elizabeth: even though technically people would know what happened.

 You're finding out how it happened and maybe you don't know a ton about all the people that were involved and so you don't know who is going to be the instigator or whatever and it's written in that way that is supposed to be like a compelling page turner even though it's non fiction.

Martha: Yeah. That sounds like, And the Sea Will Tell, that true crime story I read earlier this year. Very much, at least the first half, read like a murder mystery. , that to me felt like it would be a story doorway. You just want to keep reading and see what happened.[00:06:00] 

Elizabeth: yEah. So sometimes that does fit. And sometimes language fits with nonfiction too, depending on the writer. Sometimes they're very lyrically written. But it doesn't always. And, , that's okay. I also have mentioned a couple of times that, my husband and I are reading together the Lord of the Rings trilogy, well we also read The Hobbit, so four of the books.

 And we're at the very end of The Two Towers now, so we just have one more book after we finish The Two Towers. , and so I've mentioned that we're doing that, but I haven't ever talked about the experience of, listening to those books being read, which is something that has been definitely a big part of my year, is realizing, I mean this is gonna sound silly, but realizing how good those books actually are, how good the writing is, has been a surprise for me. obviously they're classics for a reason, right it's not like I didn't think that they were good, but. I think I had them in a certain box in my mind [00:07:00] because I only knew them through the movies and I know, the segment of society that tends to be interested in Lord of the Rings is, young men.

That is a sweeping generalization, right? But I feel like it's only fair to, lay bare my own biases when we talk so often about other people's biases when it comes to reading. So I definitely had that in my mind about Lord of the Rings, and reading it has really And he has really challenged those stereotypes about it, or generalizations, whatever you want to call them.

Because it really is beautifully written. , sometimes my husband will read a sentence and I'll just be like, Oh!

Martha: Yeah.

Elizabeth: Can you read that again, please? Because that is, beautiful. And I just didn't expect that. I really didn't expect it. I thought it would be a great story because I like the movies, 

, and it is a great story, but. Yeah, the writing and the characterization is really, really good, too. And that has been a pleasant surprise for me throughout the year.

Martha: I love that. I get what you're saying, it has the stereotype of geeky, young adult men love it, and [00:08:00] it just goes to show, similar to romance, that sometimes the fantasy genre, I think, has that stigma against it, like it's not literary if it's fantasy.

Same with sci fi, I'm sure, and, this is why we always harp on how genres can be a hindrance as much as they are helpful. So, that just goes to illustrate that point. I love

Elizabeth: Yeah. We also love to put people in boxes

in our society, right? , this is a bigger problem than just books. But, yeah, I think that fantasy, especially fantasy like Lord of the Rings and sci fi, very much gets put in a box of this is something that men are allowed to like, right? And women can like it, but it's not, expected to be written for women.

And then when you have fantasy that is written for women, it's called romantasy.

Martha: hmm. Yes.

Elizabeth: I have a whole rant about that, I think just the fact that with Fourth Wing and Sarah J. Maas, [00:09:00] this new term, romantasy, has come into.

Common usage, which is not a genre or a term that I've ever heard used in publishing before now, before this year, and that is something that I pay attention to

 Is how, the industry describes books because I'm a writer and I need to know where my book is going to fit. Into that. And yeah, what is this compulsion?

Why can't it just be fantasy? Why can't women also be interested in fantasy? Why does it have to be called romantasy?

Martha: Well, I

Elizabeth: there are love stories in Lord of the Rings. Let me tell you.

Martha: yeah, and I think that's an interesting question, Liz, did it come from the publishing industry? Or is this born of social media? Because I would almost say that people on TikTok started referring to it as romantasy as a way to talk about it to other people. aNd I've seen a lot of things this year about the influence of [00:10:00] BookTok over the publishing industry and just how unprecedented that really is and has been, so I think maybe that's worth a whole episode, too.

Elizabeth: Yeah, that is really interesting. And I think it's a fair point. , because yeah, it's not like these stereotypes and generalizations and boxes are just foisted upon us by some sort of authority, right? We also do it to ourselves.

Martha: hmm.

Elizabeth: , it's all just a cycle. We grow up thinking that certain things are for us and certain things aren't.

And so then if we like something that's not supposedly whatever, we have to fit ourselves into that. So yeah, that totally makes sense. But that's a little bit of a tangent. I feel like it's really relevant to my experience of reading Lord of the

Martha: Mm hmm. Mm hmm.

Elizabeth: Speaking of my, , expectations being pleasantly challenged, also, another book that I read that I did post on our Instagram about but didn't talk about on the podcast is The House in the Cerulean Sea by T.

J. Klune, [00:11:00] and I ended up absolutely loving that book. It took me a little while to get into and I actually almost gave up on it at one point. But for some reason decided to keep going. And I'm glad I did because by the end, it was like a five star read for

Martha: Oh, wow.

Elizabeth: And usually I'm not really into the genres that it is, which is young adult and fantasy.

 And so that just goes to show you that the genres are just limiting because it very much was a character doorway. , story and that's my favorite doorway and , I really got into it and really enjoyed it by the end. I thought it was very heartwarming and it, made me tear up, which as we know from a previous episode is always one of my favorite reading experiences, the catharsis of crying, which I do on a regular basis when reading.

Martha: And you wrote a review and posted it on our Instagram

Elizabeth: yeah. , if you want to hear more of my thoughts on that., and then the last one that I'll mention is [00:12:00] called A Rip in Time by Kelly Armstrong, which is another one that is a little bit of a, not a completely, out of left field choice for me, but it's definitely off of what my normal fare would be.

 It is historical fiction, which I do generally really like. But there's a time travel element to it, so it has a little bit of science fiction, and there also is a little bit of a mystery thriller aspect, so it actually combines a lot of different genres., and I would say that probably the main doorway is story, but it also has a pretty strong character element to it as well, in terms of the doorway.

So yeah, I've been enjoying that. I'm actually reading it now. I'm not done with it yet.

Martha: Nice.

 I hadn't heard about that one yet, so. It makes sense you're just reading it now. We haven't had a chance to talk about it.,

Elizabeth: So what about you?

Martha: Similar to A Secret Sisterhood, I think I read this book before we started recording our episode. Someone Else's Shoes [00:13:00] by Jojo Moyes I am a big fan of the Me Before You trilogy, and I've read a few other Jojo Moyes books that I really like. She has a way of writing a feel good, story that doesn't feel too, cheesy.

I think some people would maybe disagree with me, but I love Jojo Moyes. It was a sweet story about two women who were at their rock bottom, but they're very different, different classes, and they meet through a series of unlikely events and help each other take back their lives.

 I think the doorway is probably character, I highly recommend that if you want a really, feel good fiction with female friendships. And then Part of Your World by Abby Jiménez. I think I mentioned this briefly, but it was one of my favorite romance novels I read this year. It was a little different, than [00:14:00] the typical romance. Again, dealing with class issues and the female main character being the higher class and the male main character being working class, and she had to overcome a lot of other people's expectations to believe that their relationship could work out, and it was really sweet.

You know what's gonna happen, but you don't, you know, it keeps you guessing enough to make it interesting 

Elizabeth: Thing with romance, right? That's how it can be a story doorway, even though you know that they're going to have a happily ever after, but you don't necessarily know how it's going to happen, and so I feel like that's the key to Story Doorway with romance, so that makes sense.

Martha: And then Ready Player One by Ernest Cline, This is another one where similar to you and Lord of the Rings, I stepped out of my usual genre for Book Club and I really enjoyed it. It was a great story doorway. I would [00:15:00] throw setting in there too because they talked a lot about the virtual reality that most of the people living in this time spend the majority of their time in this virtual reality called the Oasis.

Yes. So he did spend a lot of time describing different worlds and possibilities in the Oasis, which was really cool. And there's a lot of 80s pop culture references which really helps to anchor you into the setting because you can picture The 80s arcade, you can picture sitting in a living room playing Nintendo, You can hear the songs that he's referencing and you know the movies so in that way I think setting was a big part of it But you very much wanted to keep going and know what happened.

It was a dystopian society where people really only wanted to exist in virtual reality, which is a little creepy [00:16:00] and makes you think about where we're headed today, especially with the rise of AI. And so for those reasons, I really liked it and kind of reflected on the state of our, our humanity right now.

So if you haven't read that one, I do recommend it. I watched the movie right after. And of course, I don't know why I'm ever surprised. The book is way better. It's way better. And usually in movies, they leave stuff out for time, right? But in this one, they just totally changed a lot of the plot, which I felt like was very unnecessary.

But, they're trying to make it. More palatable to sell more tickets, I guess. So definitely read the book if you've watched the movie. Read the book.

Elizabeth: If you're gonna watch a movie of a book, I feel like you have to give it, a few months at least for you to, , forget some of the fine detail of the book, if you have any hope of enjoying the movie, it has to be a little fuzzier in your [00:17:00] memory,

Martha: Yeah, you're probably right

 right now, I just started Homegoing by Yaa Gyasi. And I'm really excited to get into this. It's a historical fiction. I'm not very far at all, but it's about two half sisters in Ghana who aren't aware that the other exists, and they follow two different paths. One marries an Englishman . And the other one gets sold into slavery. So it follows their parallel journeys over eight generations.

Elizabeth: Oh,

Martha: Mm hmm. I'm really excited to see where that goes. And this is a book that has been challenged a lot. 

Elizabeth: Uh,

Martha: And I'm not really sure why, so I'm excited to get into it and see

Elizabeth: well,

Martha: what the controversy is.

Elizabeth: I mean, I have an idea why,

Martha: Yeah, I say that.

Elizabeth: people

and it's written by a black woman, right?

I mean, that's basically the long and short of it.

Martha: Right, which that's why I was saying that kind [00:18:00] of tongue in cheek, because it seems like a great story, 

Elizabeth: it sounds like a great story., you'll have to tell me how it is, I'll add it to my TBR

if you like it. 

Martha: Yeah, definitely. I will let you know. So that's it. I think we covered a lot of the books I read this year, actually.

Elizabeth: Yeah, we did end up covering a lot of the ones I read this year too. So if I was advanced enough to be able to put sound effects into the podcast, I would do a drum roll. But I want to know what your favorite book of the year was and no. I'm not saying that you should be cheating and choosing two or saying that you can't choose because it's your like your children.

I want to know the one book that you read this year that was your favorite.

Martha: Well, I was going to say, can I pick two? So I

Elizabeth: No!

Martha: that answers that.

Elizabeth: Of course you can, of course you can. But I do, I was, I did want to know the one favorite

Martha: I'll play by the rules. I think I can narrow it down. My favorite book this year was Happy Place by Emily [00:19:00] Henry.

Elizabeth: Okay

Martha: related so much to the characters and the story, and like I said when we talked about it, I felt like it just illustrated so well my millennial angst. So I just, I loved it.

The reading experience, everything about it. I had a total book hangover after I read . A physical copy, and it was one of those that I stayed up late to read, and sacrificed sleep, and I just loved it so much. So, Happy Place by Emily Henry is mine.

Elizabeth: Okay, that's definitely on my list to read next year and now I'm just definitely going to read it if it was your favorite book of

Martha: You didn't read it? For some reason I thought you read it this year. You didn't get

Elizabeth: I read Beach Read and I read Book Lovers, by her but , I felt like I needed to take an Emily Henry break because I read Beach Read right after Book

Lovers and I was living, breathing, eating, sleeping Emily Henry.

 [00:20:00] But no, I will read it.

Martha: Well, then I'm excited to see what your reaction is, and if it's similar or like, eh. So Liz, what was your favorite book?

Elizabeth: My favorite book this year, sometimes I have a hard time answering questions like this, but this year it immediately came to me that it was Romantic Comedy by Curtis 

Martha: Sittenfeld

Mm.

Elizabeth: Yeah. I, yeah, I just absolutely love that book.

Martha: Mm hmm. Ha

Elizabeth: For so many different reasons, I think maybe that's why it was my favorite because It was a really fun story.

I read it really quickly. It was a similar thing where I just couldn't stop reading it. I tore through it. I stayed up late. I ignored friends and family. I think I might have been reading it while, Alex's parents were here and I was always out on my swing reading, I should have probably been being a good hostess. It was like that, but [00:21:00] her writing is just so smart and it is very much the type and style of writing that I aspire to. And I also got to meet her. I don't know if we talked about this on the podcast, but I went to England for a conference that I go to every year, a librarian conference.

In, the spring and this year it was in Cambridge and it happened to be happening at the same time as the Cambridge Literary Festival. And since I was there, I looked up who was going to be there and Curtis Sittenfeld was going to be there. And I think I actually hadn't, no, I hadn't read the book yet because the copy that I ended up reading was the copy that I got signed by her.

At the festival, but I already knew that I loved her writing and so I just was like, oh, well, I'll buy this book that I've been meaning to read that I bought for the recreational collection at my job, and I'll just have my own copy, which I rarely do. And so I was like, treat yourself.

So I bought a copy at the event and it's the UK version. So it's different [00:22:00] from the US version. The cover is different, which I also feel like is special. And I had a really adorable and very meaningful to me, even though it was very short chat with her about the fact that I was also a writer.

And she talked in her talk about how this was kind of like her pandemic book. Usually she doesn't write love stories or romances, if you could call this romance. I don't think that it is a romance. It doesn't really quite fit into the conventions, but. But certainly it's a love story and it's, maybe women's fiction.

And she just talked about how she never really had given herself permission to just write something fun and that was nice and that made her feel good while she was writing it. And that during the pandemic, she decided to just do that because

she needed it. And that is exactly the same way that I felt about the manuscript that I'm currently working on.

I wrote it during the pandemic. It's much more feel good. love story than I've allowed myself to write because I, again, as is a [00:23:00] theme, I

Martha: Mm hmm.

Elizabeth: way too seriously. And that goes with my writing as well.

Martha: hmm.

Elizabeth: And so yeah, , I told her how I was feeling that way about this too.

And she was like, Oh, well, I can't wait to read it. And I was like, Well, I'm not published yet. And she was like, Well, everyone isn't published until they are. So just, you know, let me know when it happens. Yeah, it was really cute.

Martha: Great 

Elizabeth: And then when I sat down to read it, I was like, Oh my God, I absolutely love this book.

 Yeah, just all around favorite for me.

Martha: Well, it's funny too the way she described it and you just described it as something fun and feel good, which it is, but it also tackles some serious themes. It's not all like sunshine and rainbows and love. Mm hmm.

Elizabeth: Yeah, totally. Which is how I would describe my book too. But, yeah, I don't know, maybe it's just because it's all relative. She was talking in her talk at the festival about how the book that she had published immediately previously to that was her [00:24:00] book Rodham, which is, her imagined life of Hillary Clinton if she hadn't married Bill Clinton.

And so she talked about. How, as research for that book, one of the things she had to do was watch Donald Trump's campaign announcement. I think she said she watched it like 50 times because she was writing a scene in the book where Hillary Rodham runs for president and is, having a thought process about this person

who's going to be in the presidential race with her.

And so she was just describing how brutal that was, to watch that over and over and over again. And so then after she wrote that book, she tried to start writing another serious book and it was during the pandemic and she just couldn't do it. So I think that it's the type of writer that she is.

She probably couldn't write something without. A bigger theme to it, but just relative to that, this felt like Sunshine and Roses and

Martha: [00:25:00] yeah, 

Elizabeth: you know? 

Martha: totally, that makes sense,

Elizabeth: yeah. That's really funny.

 Okay, hearing about some of the books that you read that we haven't talked about, but also, the other books that you've read that we've talked about , and then hearing about your favorite book, I now want to know, how do you feel like your year went in reading?

 Are you happy with how much you read or what you read? Did you have a number goal? I know we talked at one point about how you had a goal for a number of paper books. But yeah, just how do you feel about your year in reading overall?

Martha: Mm hmm. am actually really proud, in a way, of my year in reading, and I did set a goal to read one physical book a month and then just gave myself free reign as many audiobooks as I could or wanted to get through, so I didn't have a specific goal. Number other than at least 12 physical books, and I'm happy to [00:26:00] say that I surpassed that number by quite a lot.

So right now I'm at 57 books finished and I'm hoping to finish one or two more. Before the end of 2023, which by the time this comes out, it's going to be January. It's not about the number of books that I read, though. I'm not proud because I read 57 books. I'm proud because of the experience I had. I read a lot of books that I wouldn't normally. I joined a local book club and met new, bookish friends in my community. And it's pushed me to read. Books that I wouldn't have put on my TBR otherwise and I really enjoyed reading so that was a big Bonus for me and I really didn't read a lot of nonfiction.

I think I read maybe two One or two nonfiction books this year, [00:27:00] which I think is good because it forced me to lighten up a little bit. I think in the past I've read a lot of self help books and whatever, . But I kind of let that go and focus more on reading for enjoyment and it really paid off and I think that's why I got through so many.

Elizabeth: I love that.

 I love so much about that. I love that reading has expanded your social circle and made your life like you're in IRL

Martha: yeah.

Elizabeth: in real life better. That's so great.

Martha: Mm hmm.

Elizabeth: I didn't read very much nonfiction this year either, but that's actually been a trend for me over the last several years.

 During the pandemic, I just decided that I didn't need to be doing things that were making me feel at all negatively because I felt negatively enough about everything all the time. I stopped listening to the news for a while and I am a person who's always prided myself on knowing what is going on in the world.

 I lived in Washington D. C. for almost 10 years and worked in politics and so that was a very big part of my personality. [00:28:00] And during the pandemic I just was like, nope,

Martha: Yeah.

Elizabeth: I'm not listening to the news anymore. So I put reading nonfiction , in a similar type of box

Martha: Mm hmm. So tell us about your year in reading and how you felt. 

Elizabeth: It's funny to hear you say that the part that you're proud of, I mean the parts that you're proud of are amazing and you should be proud of them. When you said you read 57 books I was like, oh my god, I would be proud of reading 57 books. But I think have a very complicated relationship with goals and it's something that I actually think that , doing this podcast with you this year has helped me get away from a little bit. 

I have a complicated relationship with goals in the sense that I always set a reading goal, a numeric reading goal, for myself. Even before I started using Goodreads I would do this, but definitely since Goodreads started their , your challenge or whatever for the year where you set the number of books that you want and then you can go throughout the year and see how many books [00:29:00] behind schedule you are or ahead of schedule I guess, but I'm always behind because I always set a goal that is not actually feasible.

, I always want my goal to be 52 books in a year because I want to read a book a week, and I don't know why I have that in my head but it just, is what I always want to do, even though I literally have never done it. Never. Never.

Martha: A book a week without using audiobooks would be very hard 

Elizabeth: Yeah, right. Right. And as you know, I just started listening to audiobooks over the last like year or so. So yeah, I set myself this impossible goal year after year and then feel bad about myself when I don't meet it. But also feel compelled to set it, I can't just not set the goal.

Martha: Mm hmm.

Elizabeth: I want accountability. And I function a lot [00:30:00] better when I have some type of extrinsic accountability. That's the case with my writing as well. If I have, a reader that I know is waiting for something, or if I have the structure of NaNoWriMo. Where you write a book in a month.

I function really well with that. Not because I don't have any intrinsic motivation, but because there's something about my personality that I just need to get a gold star or an A

Martha: You're like a people pleaser. Yeah.

Elizabeth: I know you're similar. So , the prospect of getting that accolade, even if it's just like from a frickin website that I put the number into, it's like

Martha: It's 

Elizabeth: motivating to me, yeah.

So it is satisfying if you reach it, and it is motivating on one hand, but then on the other hand, that's why I say that I have this love hate relationship, or whatever

I said with goals. Because on the other hand, it just makes me feel bad about myself. Every single year, and I feel like I didn't read enough, even though I read a good [00:31:00] amount, you know,

Martha: Yeah. You read a lot.

Elizabeth: so this year, it's just been really interesting because Talking with you so much about what I'm reading, there's no way that I can say to myself right now at the end of my year when I did not read 52 books.

Martha: Mm hmm.

Elizabeth: I think I'm gonna end up like at about half that,

Martha: Mm hmm.

Elizabeth: books. But there's just no way that I can say that I didn't read enough this year because so much of my life has been reading and talking to you about books and talking about reading and also talking about not judging ourselves for reading and reading being good.

And so it actually, , has affected my real life too in the sense that, , I just feel like I'm not able to be as hard on myself at the end of this year about not reaching that goal because. Of the messages that we've been talking about and taking my own advice, but also because I know that I've read a good number of books and I've read as many books as I can.

And , there's no reason to [00:32:00] beat myself up about that. And I also have found satisfaction in some of those other things that you've mentioned, like the fact that I've gotten into audiobooks and I'm reading in that different format when I haven't. I've done that before, and the fact that I've read several books that are outside of what my normal, genres are, and have enjoyed them, that has all been incredibly satisfying, and so I do feel better about my year in reading this year than I feel like I would have before.

If it was the same as all the previous years where I said I wanted to read 52 books

and then only ended up reading about half that, which is what I do most years. Most years I read between 20 and 25 books, but I always set the goal at 52 every

single 

Martha: my goodness.

Elizabeth: Um,

Martha: Well, I think this is a great segue into setting reading goals. Is it a good idea? Is it a bad idea? And the pros and cons. And I think this is a great example of why some people I [00:33:00] don't think that reading goals are bad, because if it's making you feel bad, and it's having a negative impact on your view of your reading, then we don't want that, 

 I would challenge you to set a different goal for 2024 and change the way that you think about your goal.

Elizabeth: yeah, yeah, I think so. And then I was also thinking about our episode that we just did not that long ago about how do you read so much. tHe parts where we were talking about how, doing something that you enjoy isn't wasted time and just enjoying it, , but also I was thinking about what we talked about when it came to prioritization of our free time.

And that really is. The bottom line of this, 52 versus 26 thing for me, I think, , if I wanted to read 52 books a year, I could, if I prioritize that above my writing and above my hiking on the weekends that I always like to do if I can,[00:34:00] , if I wanted to read a book a week that is, completely within my reach, But I would have to not do other things that I also feel compelled to do and want to do with my life.

And so I had a little bit of an epiphany during that episode, which I don't think that I shared with you, where I was like, Okay, this is what is wrong with the way that I'm approaching this reading goal thing , I'm treating the fact that I don't read 52 books as a personal failing.

When actually it just reflects. the amount of time that I'm willing to spend reading in my life is not what I would need to do to read 52 books. That's just the bottom line.

Martha: which I think is really healthy because you want to have a social life and hang out with Al and your friends and, hike and go on weekend trips and do those other things too. So I think that's great. And It reminds me of some bookish influencers that [00:35:00] I follow on Instagram and TikTok. I've seen posts about how they're so burnt out on reading at some points during the year that they can't even stand to pick up another book.

And these are people who read over a hundred books a year. And I have to question that a little bit. Are you doing that at the detriment of your quality of life? 

 And I understand the pressure to do it because your following expects to see more and more book recommendations and reviews and that sort of thing, but I do think there can be too much of a good thing.

Elizabeth: Yeah, and I mean if they were enjoying it, we both would say more power to you because our whole thing is that whatever it is that you're enjoying about reading, do that, it doesn't matter. But yeah, if they're doing it and it's not actually giving them pleasure, it's a little bit complicated with the big accounts too, , because it might be the way that they make their living.

And so it's that thing where,

Martha: When your hobby becomes your [00:36:00] job. Yeah.

Elizabeth: Yeah, that reminded me , I saw this TikTok video that I'm actually not sure still whether it was a joke or not, but this young woman was talking about the way that she gets through so many books in a year is that she listens to one book and reads another at the same time.

Martha: That has to be a joke, right?

Elizabeth: I thought it was, but then I watched the whole video and she never was like, psych! And so I was like, okay, I don't know what's going on

Martha: if she can do that, she has some superpower of 

Elizabeth: Yeah, but it sort of, It sort of had a tone of I have to get through this number of books to it though. , it didn't have a tone of , this is what I like to do. It's like, this is how I,

Martha: Yeah.

Elizabeth: is how I do this thing that I feel a compulsion to do for whatever reason. Right. So yeah, I think that that is what it comes down to is it's like, Why are you doing this?

 If it's not giving you any pleasure, if it is your job, I don't know, that gets a little [00:37:00] bit more complicated. But if it is actually just a hobby, like reading is for most of us, then you should be doing it in a way that

Martha: It's 

Elizabeth: that allows you to enjoy it.

Yeah, and I did actually do a little bit of research on Into this. , I remembered this article after I had my epiphany and it's this article that was in a totally different context, but it's when I was listening to the podcast called Maintenance Phase.

I don't know if you've ever listened to it, but.

Martha: But you've told me about it. Sounds great.

Elizabeth: Yeah, well, listeners, if you haven't listened to Maintenance Phase, you totally should. It's all about, debunking diet culture and wellness culture. And they did an episode on the 10, 000 steps thing.

Martha: Mm.

Elizabeth: Which I also am in, , a very intense love hate relationship with, and have been for, , a decade, , ever since Fitbit came out.

 I always want to have I have a Fitbit to track my number of steps and get my [00:38:00] steps

in, but if I have a day where I only do 2000 steps, like last week I had a medical procedure where I was under anesthesia and my husband had to take a day off work so that he could watch me and I wasn't allowed to make any serious decisions and I still managed to feel guilty at the end of the day that I had only walked 2000 steps.

Martha: What?

Elizabeth: So, , not to turn this into, , Elizabeth's Therapy Hour, but it felt very related to me. And so then I looked up this research, and indeed, it is bigger , than just the 10, 000 Steps thing. It's this research from A, professor at Duke University, in the School of Business, which I thought was really interesting.

 It's called The Hidden Cost of Personal Quantification. And it went into the Journal of Consumer Research. Which makes sense because that 10, 000 Steps thing, of course, if you listen to the Maintenance Phase episode, is just completely a marketing thing.[00:39:00] It's not based on any science. 

Martha: Really? I did not know that

Elizabeth: it is absolutely. It came from Japan,, someone in Japan was Worried that people weren't exercising enough and so they were like we should give people a goal.

And so they just came up with 10, 000 Steps. It's not based on any science. It was just created.

Martha: man.

Elizabeth: So if you're like me and have been beholden to this 10, 000 Steps thing for, a decade or however long it's been in the popular imagination, , you can let yourself off the hook now.

Martha: Yeah. Wow. 

Elizabeth: So, the whole, Fitbit thing was a little bit of a digression. But this research that the Duke University, faculty did is that, , they conducted six experiments where participants did different activities. So things like coloring, reading, walking, but things that generally are thought of as, low stakes, , enjoyable [00:40:00] activities that you might do for, , a hobby or to, relax or whatever.

, they didn't choose things that are, , intense in any way. They had various different phases of the study. The first study had 105 people coloring for 10 minutes. And the second one had 95 people. , walking for a certain amount of time a day. And in each of the experiments, they had a group where they just told them to do this thing and to not.

. And then they did, , a group where they were tracking the amount of time that they spent doing it, or the number of steps that they took, etc.

And , it's a little bit more complicated than this, but that's the 30, 000 foot view. And basically the bottom line of this is that the people who tracked it enjoyed it less.

Martha: Mm.

Elizabeth: Just the act of tracking it turned it into a

work 

Martha: Yeah. task 

Yeah. 

Elizabeth: right? And when they were given a task that was , traditionally connected with efficiency and [00:41:00] tracking, when they expected that of that task, then doing it didn't have any effect on how much they enjoyed it.

But when it was something like coloring or walking or something that was supposed to be enjoyable and they had to track it, they reported enjoying it less. That's the part that to me related back to this reading goal thing. It's like I am probably sapping my enjoyment in the reading that I do have.

Martha: Yeah.

Elizabeth: By setting this completely unattainable goal and then self flagellating for not meeting it.

Martha: Yeah. That makes so much sense. I would say that if someone does want to set a reading goal, it should be something that you almost know you can attain. And maybe not just a number, but pick You know, I want to read a book I've never heard of this year, or I'm going to ask a random friend for a suggestion, and I'm going to read it, of course, always with the caveat, if you [00:42:00] don't like it, you don't have to finish it, or I'm going to read a genre I've never read, or something like that.

I think there's a lot of different ways that we can set goals that aren't based solely on the number of books that we have read.

Elizabeth: Yeah, exactly. And I think that that is the direction that I'm going in for how I want , to think about my reading goals for this coming year. Because the experiences that I was talking about , in the beginning where I had my expectations of a book. And Be pleasantly, you know, defied.

Martha: Mm hmm.

Elizabeth: It's really been such an enjoyable experience to realize , Oh, I actually do like this whole genre of books that I have just completely written off as not for me.

Martha: Yeah, it's 

Elizabeth: You know? 

Martha: a surprise. It's a nice surprise. And it kind of breaks up the monotony a little bit. If you're reading only one genre that has its [00:43:00] tropes, and they all kind of seem a little similar. It's good to break it up a little.

Yeah,

Elizabeth: Yeah. I also started stepping outside of my normal genres even at the very beginning of the year before we started doing this podcast because you talked to me about these romance books that you read that I thought sounded like, oh, that actually sounds really fun. I want to read that.

Whereas I spent the second half of 2022 reading Middlemarch.

Martha: yeah, yeah.

Elizabeth: So speaking of breaking it up and doing something different, I went from reading Middlemarch to the first , half of the year, definitely being dominated by romance, because yeah, I do love reading the classics, but you need a

variety. 

Martha: it up.

Elizabeth: Yeah. You have to break it up. Yeah

Martha: so, have you set a specific goal for 2024?

Elizabeth: No, I haven't. I haven't. I was just thinking about it. Before this episode and was like, I need to come up with a goal before the episode. But then I realized that that was the same compulsion [00:44:00] as , making myself feel guilty for not reaching the goal. But now that we've been talking, I do think that I want my goal to be more centered around, what I read as opposed to how much I

Martha: Mm hmm.

Elizabeth: Because really, the amount that I read is kind of fixed. I have read the same number of books pretty much for the last, ten

Martha: Mm hmm.

Elizabeth: That's just the amount of time that I give it in my life. And , that's fine. So I think that I'll come up with a list of genres that I want to read.

One book from each of these genres.

Martha: hmm.

Elizabeth: So that then that also gives me the latitude , to quit the books that I don't like. , because if I know that I'm probably going to read about 25 books in a year, then that gives me a little bit of like, okay, well, what do I want that mix to be? And just accepting that that's the number and if I end up reading more because I find something that I really enjoy, like a genre that I didn't realize or a type of book that I didn't realize I really enjoy, then that will be great.

But It doesn't set me up to feel guilty, I

Martha: Yeah. Yeah. [00:45:00] I think that's

Elizabeth: about you?

Martha: I think mine will be very similar to what I did this year, Although if I'm going to stay in my book club, I almost don't need to set the goal because it forces me to do what my initial goal was, which is , one physical book a month, and I have been reading them. The book club books on paper because it's hosted by my local bookstore, and I want to support the bookstore by buying the book, which is kind of the point. So, that will help me not only read at least one physical book a month, but also read in different genres because each month we pick a book from a different genre.

So, I think that's basically it. I might up it to two physical books a month and see if I can commit to that without putting too much pressure on myself because then I'll be able to read all my book club books and add some for just myself that I pick.

Elizabeth: Mm hmm.

Martha: So I guess that's [00:46:00] 24 physical books if we want to put a number on it.

But I'm not gonna go crazy and make myself feel bad if I don't meet that goal because life is busy and I realize that.

Elizabeth: Yeah, totally. But I also think, this probably goes without saying, but I feel compelled to say, That if you do enjoy having a quantity goal,, that's fine. I was talking a lot about the cons of that for me, but people have different personalities and different neuroses than me, obviously.

 If that doesn't give you that guilt and shame feeling, and it just motivates you, then, that's great. Obviously, keep doing that. . But if you are one of those people who feels like you're on the hook for that, and then when you don't reach it, you feel bad about it, I would definitely suggest trying a different, , type of goal or having no goal at

all, because I think that the bottom line, like, I said that it probably goes without saying, because if you've been listening to this [00:47:00] podcast, you know that we just want people to enjoy their reading.

All reading is good. So whatever goal does that for you, I think is great. But there is a culture around reading goals, I feel like, and a lot of it probably does have to do with Goodreads,

Martha: Mm hmm.

Elizabeth: this huge company that, you

Martha: Yeah, right.

Elizabeth: is owned by Amazon and , has such a big share of the marketplace in terms of people tracking what they read.

And That means that if you do set a reading goal, , the chances that it is based in that structure that Goodreads has created, which is a number of books per year, are good, right? So if you're a person who is in that structure and you don't want to be, I just want to give you permission

Martha: Yeah.

Elizabeth: to step outside of that, I think.

Martha: Yeah, to wrap up the conversation about pros and cons of reading goals, it's pretty simple to say that reading goals can help you read more, they can help you read outside of your normal genre, they can help you broaden your [00:48:00] horizons, so to speak, they can help you connect with people that you might not have connected with through similar books that you love, but the cons, they can make you feel bad about your reading or make you feel guilty that you're not doing enough or you're not meeting your goals.

So, like Liz just said, you, the listener, have to decide based on your individual preferences and your personality. What's going to work for you and whatever you do, just try and feel good about your reading and don't put too much pressure on yourself. And if it's making you feel guilty or shameful, then it's okay to change it up mid year.

You don't have to commit to it all year.

Elizabeth: Yeah, that's a great point too.

Martha: Mhm.

Elizabeth: Circle back to it. If it's not working for you, you're allowed to change it in the middle of the year. Yeah, that's a great point. Wise as always, Martha.

Martha: Yeah.

Elizabeth: I [00:49:00] Think that a good way to wrap this episode up would be to look forward and talk about what books we are excited to read in 2024.

Martha: Mm hmm.

Elizabeth: Does that sound good

Martha: Yeah, I think that sounds good. Do you want to start us off?

Elizabeth: Yes, I will start us off. There are a few books that I know that I'm not going to it's still 2023 right now as we're recording this. I'm, I, that are on my TBR right now and I know I'm not going to finish them in the next couple of weeks. So they will be at the top of my TBR in 2024. One of those is Birnam Wood by Eleanor Catton or Catton, , which I've been excited to read and just haven't managed to start yet.

 10 Things That Never Happened by Alexis Hall. If you have heard me talk about, the book Boyfriend Material by Alexis 

Martha: Hall

Mm hmm.

Elizabeth: And the book Rosalind Palmer Takes the Cake, Alexis Hall [00:50:00] also wrote, which I absolutely adored. I actually adored both of

those books.

Boyfriend Material is very similar in terms of the voice. to red, white, and royal blue. So if you liked that book, I think you would like Boy For Material. So I'm really excited to read their new book. And then I have had The Cazalet Chronicles by Elizabeth Jane Howard on my TBR for a couple years.

And I'm mentioning this one because Martha, I know that you and I share a love of Elizabeth

Martha: Mm hmm. Mm

Elizabeth: and podcaster. And this is one of her favorite authors that I've actually heard her talk about on one of the BBC shows that she does that I listen to because I'm a dork and an anglophile. 

And this is one of her authors that she talks about as being,, underappreciated and doesn't get the credit that she deserves. There are five books in this series that she wrote called the Cazalet Chronicles. And, I've always wanted to read them and I just have [00:51:00] decided that 2024 is going to be the year that I at least start that series.

I don't know if I'll read all five, but

Martha: Mm hmm. 

Elizabeth: And then there are a few books that I know are going to be published in 2024 that I'm really looking forward to.

 One is Death Comes to Marlow by Robert Thorogood, which is the follow up to the book that I talked about a lot on the podcast, The Marlow Murder Club, which I loved, so I'm really looking forward to that. I also ran across this book called Song of the Huntress by Lucy Holland, which is described as perfect for fans of Circe, which I know that we both loved and so that one is definitely on my TBR as well. And I wanted to tell you about it because I know that you love Circe.

Martha: Yeah, I'm gonna have to add that to my TBR. Nice.

Elizabeth: And then the book A Thousand Words, A Writer's Guide to Staying Creative, Focused, and Productive All Year Round by Jamie Attenberg is coming out this year. And if you are a writer, you probably know about Jamie Attenberg's [00:52:00] A Thousand Words. For summer, I think she calls it, the program that she does for writers every summer and she has this book coming out where she's gotten a lot of really cool writers to write chapters about how they structure their writing lives and how they stay productive. And I'm really looking forward to that one.

 Then the last one that I know I want to read when it comes out in 2024 is called The Paris Novel by Ruth Richl. And Ruth Richl is a chef. If you are at all a foodie you probably have heard of Ruth Richl.

She was the editor of Gourmet Magazine for a long time. And , her cookbooks are great and are little mini memoirs. And so I have a couple of her cookbooks. But then she wrote a novel, her first novel that she wrote. I want to say it was almost 10 years ago, called Delicious, that I absolutely adored.

It definitely had mixed reviews. Some people were like, what is this lady doing? She should stick to cooking. But I actually [00:53:00] adored the book Delicious. It is very, very food centric. Her descriptions of food in it are amazing, as you might expect. But it's also a coming of age story about a young woman.

And I just really loved it. I didn't know though that she was continuing to write fiction because it came out a really long time ago and she hasn't published another novel. But this is a novel about, , A young woman whose mother dies and gets an inheritance, and she goes to Paris. And so it reminded me a lot of Main Character

Martha: Oh, cool.

Elizabeth: really enjoyed.

, that's kind of it. The publishing industry tends to announce books a quarter at a time. So most of the announcements for new books in 2024 are through April, except for if it's a huge book, like the third book in the Rebecca Yarros series coming out in December or something, right?

So that's the exception, Spotify recently, , has started to include audiobooks in their paid membership, you get, 15 hours or something of an audiobook per month that's just included for no extra cost.

And so I'm going to start, adding an audiobook a month. That I can [00:54:00] get on Spotify, and I've already seen a few that I want to read on there. I think the first one I'm going to read is The Very Secret Society of Irregular Witches by Sangu Mandana.

Martha: hmm.

Elizabeth: been on my TBR for a long time, but I haven't, gotten to

Martha: I read that this year on paper. Yeah, it was cute.

Elizabeth: Oh, we didn't talk about it. Okay. Yeah. So yeah, I think I'm going to add that into the mix as well, those Spotify audiobooks. What about you? What are you looking forward to in 2024?

Martha: Well, there are a few books that I just didn't get to this year that are on their main character energy being one Which I think I'll listen to So we can compare the different experiences. I think that would be fun because I know you love that one. My Life in France by Julia Child. We've talked about that book so much on the podcast, and it really piqued my interest.

And it's an older one, but I want to read it and have it in my arsenal. [00:55:00] Similarly, Rebecca by Daphne Du Maurier. I've listened to you talk about that book a lot on the podcast too. And then I saw the movie come out on Netflix. I want to watch the movie, but I have this self imposed rule where I have to read the book first. 

Elizabeth: Think that you will love both those books. I watched the Netflix adaptation of Rebecca and I liked it. I mean, again, I think that you need to not watch it right after you read the book. , I had read Rebecca a really long time ago, so I didn't have that issue. And I remember watching it and feeling like it was a good.

And adaptation.

Martha: I'm excited then for those. And then The Fragile Threads of Power by V. E. Schwab. I bought that book months and months ago, but I keep leapfrogging over it to read some other books, so I haven't gotten to that yet, but I do intend to read it. And then some books that haven't been published yet that I'm waiting for, Ruthless Vows, which is the [00:56:00] follow up to Divine Rivals.

 House of Flame and Shadow, which is Crescent City number three by Sarah J. Maas, that's slated to come out in January. And the thing about those two books in particular being new releases, like with Iron Flame, I felt a little bit of pressure to read them right away because What comes up on my social media with the way the algorithm works is a lot of content about those books and I don't want them to get spoiled before I read them.

So I'm like, okay, I have to read them when everyone else does or put my head in the sand.

Elizabeth: but then you have to wait a year until you

Martha: I know! I know! It's so annoying. I keep telling people who ask me about Fourth Wing and Iron Flame, if you don't like a cliffhanger, Don't start the series until they're all out, because she loves to end every book on a cliffhanger, and then you have to wait a whole year. It's so frustrating. But also kind of genius, so I get it.

Elizabeth: Yeah, it is genius.

Martha: [00:57:00] Emily Henry is coming out with another one in 2024 called Funny Story. 

Elizabeth: That's on my list too, actually. 

Martha: , so that comes out in April. And then of course, like you mentioned, the Empyrean, which is the third book in the fourth wing series that's supposed to come out November 30th, 2024, allegedly. I feel like those dates kind of change sometimes when they're projected so far out.

Elizabeth: Yeah.

Martha: And then I'm really excited for this one.

Le Fay, which is the second book in that Morgan Le Fay series that I started by Sophie Keetch, which is the Arthurian book focused more on the POV of Morgan Le Fay than King Arthur.

Elizabeth: Yeah, and that book was a total fluke for you, right? Didn't you end up reading that just because you had, run out of credits or something and it was a free

Martha: yeah, I was hard 

up 

Elizabeth: I love 

Martha: was desperate.

Elizabeth: I love that, though! And you ended up loving it and now you're looking forward to reading the second one.

That's so

Great.

Martha: So that's it. [00:58:00] Mm hmm.

Elizabeth: like that's a lot to look forward to and we both have goals that are going to motivate us to read but not make us feel guilty. So before we wrap up, I just wanted to note for listeners, we have rattled off a lot of book titles in this episode.

So I just wanted to remind everyone that For every episode we do show notes that include, the titles and authors for the books that we're reading aNd for this episode, I will put every book that we mention, that we either have read or are looking forward to reading

and I also always put , any research that I do, the links to the articles, if they are available. Sometimes it's scholarly publishing that you have to pay to get access to, but if there is an open access version of the research, then I'll put that on there too. And you can find those show notes on our website.

 At the very top of the website, allbooksaloudpod. com, there is a menu and one [00:59:00] of the menu items is show notes and transcripts. And so there you'll find the show notes and also the line by line transcript. If I didn't include something in the show notes that you know we talked about, then you could go to the transcript and find it that way.

 I just wanted to mention that, because if you're listening while you're driving or walking and don't, have anything to write with, you might not remember them all.

Martha: perfect. Thank you, Liz, we also wanted to say that if there are any topics that you the listener want us to cover in 2024, we'd love it if you would send us an email to allbooksaloudpod at gmail. com or if you follow us on social media, feel free to direct message us.

Elizabeth: Yeah, we have a lot of topics and good episodes that we are looking forward to doing, we have plans for an episode from a romance authors convention. We have plans for an episode from Our vacation to Hawaii that we're taking 

Martha: hmm. Yeah.

Elizabeth: to talk about, what books [01:00:00] you take, when you travel.

But yeah, we want to know what people want to hear from

Martha: Mm hmm. .

So, happy new year, friends and listeners, and read on.

[All Books Aloud theme music]