It’s almost 2024, which means it’s time to start thinking about your New Year’s reading resolutions!
Do you want to read more books? Listen to more audiobooks? Clear out your TBR or organize your bookshelves? There are tons of benefits to reading and lots of different reading resolutions you could choose for the new year, so if you’re looking for inspiration on what to choose here are 13 best New Year’s reading resolutions for book lovers in 2024!
1. Read More Books
Reading more books is one of the most popular reading resolutions for the new year, and with good reason! It is a good goal that is easy to customize to your situation, no matter how many books you currently read.
For instance, if you only read one or two books a year right now, you can step up your game and try for more. Perhaps even reading a book a month (totaling 12 books in the year). Or, if you’re an avid reader, you might want to go for 52 books a year (1 a week) or perhaps something even more like 150!
This reading resolution is perfectly customizable, and if you want to track your goal you may even want to join the hugely popular Goodreads Challenge, where you can set a specific number of books to read in the year and then have fun watching as your number of completed books begins to climb!
2. Read a Specific Number of Pages a Day
Another of the best New Year’s resolutions for readers is to read a specific number of pages a day. Rather than focusing on the total number of books read, this allows you to focus on developing good reading habits and reading at least a little bit every day.
Whether you choose to read 10 pages a day or 100, this is one of the best resolution ideas for book lovers and is sure to get you reading more in 2024!
3. Spend More Time Reading
Spending more time reading is a similar resolution to reading a specific number of pages each day, but instead of measuring in pages you measure in time. It’s a great idea to use this resolution to set aside time for reading every day, whether that is only 15 minutes or an hour or more.
4. Listen to More Audiobooks
If you like listening to audiobooks but don’t do it often, or you wish you liked audiobooks but haven’t really tried it out yet, then an excellent goal for this year could be to listen to more audiobooks!
You can choose a specific number of audiobooks to listen to for the year, or you could say you’ll listen to an audiobook once a month, or whatever other goal you come up with. There are so many good audiobooks out there that you are sure to have a blast with this reading resolution!
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5. Read More Diverse Books/Books You Don’t Normally Read
If you’re looking for New Year’s resolutions for book lovers that will shake your reading up, then perhaps you’ll want your New Year’s reading goals to be to read more diverse books or books you don’t normally read.
One of the reasons reading is so amazing is that it allows you to learn new things, discover new ideas, and see the world through others’ eyes. We all have specific types of books we gravitate towards, but if you find yourself falling into a reading rut and only reading the same type of books over and over, then it may be time to mix it up!
For this resolution, you could choose to read a specific number of books from diverse authors throughout the year or a specific number of books from genres you don’t normally read. Or you could set the resolution to read something from a diverse author/different genre once a month, or dedicate a whole month to reading just diverse authors or just different genres. The possibilities are endless!
6. Only Read Things You Find Interesting
Looking for bookish New Year’s resolutions that make your life easier and more enjoyable? Try only reading things you find interesting!
This resolution takes reading off your plate—if you’re reading a book and it’s not enjoyable, then ditch it! Life’s too short to read books you don’t like. (Plus, this frees up your time to find an enjoyable new book to read!)
If you’re the type of reader who feels the need to finish every book you start, this New Year’s resolution could be difficult for you…so here’s a handy guide to help you figure out when to stop reading a book. I promise learning when to DNF a book is so worth it!
7. Make More Reading Friends
Another resolution you might enjoy is to make more reading friends. If you don’t know many people in real life who love reading like you do, then it’s a little sad when you’re bursting at the seams to tell someone about your new book haul, your latest read, or something else bookish but no one understands!
So making more reading friends can be a great thing to do this new year. If you’re looking for somewhere to make new bookish friends, you can try joining bookish Facebook groups, making a Bookstagram, or even check out the next reading resolution below for another great book friend making idea!
8. Join a Book Club
Have you been a part of a book club before? If you haven’t (or even if you have) your New Year’s resolution could be to join one!
This kind of goes along with the idea of making more reading friends, but a book club is so fun to participate in because you all read the same book and you have people you can discuss it with to your heart’s content! There are also lots of benefits to being part of a book club. So consider joining a book club this year for some fun reading discussions and new bookish friends!
9. Read All the Books Currently On Your TBR
Another New Year’s resolutions reading idea is to read all the books that are currently on your TBR. “To Be Read” lists can get out of hand pretty quickly, so if yours is already packed beyond full then this could be the year you read all the books on it!
I highly recommend combining this one with resolution 6, so if something on your TBR turns out to be uninteresting then you can just DNF it. But regardless, this is one of the best resolution ideas for bookworms because you can clear out your TBR and prepare it for all the new books you will want to add to it this year!
Don’t have a TBR yet? Learn how to make a TBR list!
10. Stop Buying Books
Another bookish New Year’s resolution idea is to stop buying books this year. It isn’t a secret that most readers love buying books…but if you’ve bought way more books than you can possibly read anytime soon, then maybe this is a good year to take a step back and challenge yourself to take a break from buying!
For this resolution, you could make it a short-term thing (1 or 3 months) or go big and ban buying books for the whole year. Or you could challenge yourself to stop buying books until you’ve read all the ones you’ve bought already (or until you’ve read all the books on your TBR). However you choose to do this, it’s a great resolution to help you get through the books you bought already or to help you stop spending so much money!
11. Organize Your Bookshelves
Have you been putting off organizing your bookshelves? Do you have books overflowing your shelves and onto the floors, or sitting in bags in different places around your house? If so, then this year could be a great time to organize your bookshelves!
Whether you want to go full-scale organizing, alphabetizing, and cataloging, or if you just want to have every book have a spot on a shelf, this is an excellent new years resolution for any book lover!
12. Declutter Your Books
Now, I know this is one New Year’s resolution that could get me ousted from the band of book lovers…but have you considered decluttering your books as a possible New Year’s book resolution?
This is an especially good resolution if you don’t have enough shelf space for all the books you own, but please do note that I’m not asking you to give away ALL your books or even asking you to Marie Kondo them (although I guess you could if you want…). All I’m saying is that if you have books around that you didn’t even enjoy, or books that you’re never going to read again and wouldn’t want to recommend to anyone, then perhaps it’s time to look at your shelf and see if you can let any of those go!
13. Track Your Reading
And last, one of the best New Year’s resolutions you can do is to track your reading. I’m a huge fan of reading tracking and advise everyone I know to do it!
Why? Because I’ve seen too many people forget the names of books they read, and now they want to find them again but can’t figure out what they were called! (Side note: if that’s you, I do have some tips on how to find books when you’ve forgotten their titles). But this can be avoided by keeping a written record, in either a reading journal or a reading tracking database. It is far easier to find a book you’ve forgotten when you have a list of titles you’ve read and some notes about them.
But keeping track of your reading is also just a rewarding and enjoyable thing to do, because it’s so much fun to see the list of books you’ve read grow over the years and to be able to look back on your notes! If tracking your reading is your New Year’s resolution this year, you can learn how to start a reading journal here or discover the best reading tracking methods here.