So, now what?

Well, we’ve reached 2016, and my quest for fifteen thousand pages is complete. So what do I do now?

It’s a question I’ve been contemplating for some time, since I realized I was actually, definitely going to finish the original challenge.

I really felt lost about it for a while. Should I just try to get to 16,000? I almost did in 2015, but fell just short because, honestly, I didn’t actively carve out reading time as much as I did when I knew I had a goal to reach – which is why I started the journey in the first place! Reading is my first great love, and in this click-bait, short attention span world, I wanted to make sure I was sitting down and letting myself be immersed in the words of books.

Really, I couldn’t be happier with how my project turned out. But I wanted to do something a little different for 2016. Which is where my cousin, Amber of palechickstudios, comes in.

A couple of months ago, she shared a link on my wall about a woman who went on her own reading journey: to read a book from every country in the world. Pretty freaking cool. That inspired me. I love books, but for obvious reasons, I tend to mostly read authors who write in English.

So this year, I’m going in a bit different direction, I want to read 15,000 pages once again – but I want to read at least 60% of authors from different countries (aka not America and the UK). I already know there are books I’m excited to read by American authors, and those will be great. But there’s so much more out there that deserves exploring!

Luckily, I’ve already got a book to get started with. My sister, without having any awareness of my intentions for this year, gave me Under the Udala Trees, by Chinelo Okparanta, for Christmas. The novel, Okparanta’s first, is inspired by Nigerian folktales and its war. I’m pretty excited about it.

So that’s what I hope 2016 has in store for me, reading-wise. What do you hope it has in store for you?