Goodreads Reading Challenge

Growing up, I used to read a lot – I’d constantly have my nose in a book during class (math especially). My parents made a point to encourage my love of reading; we would spend hours in Barnes & Noble and the library, and frequently took a lot of road trips with stacks and stacks of books in the backseat. But when I got to college and moved from my house to sharing a dorm room, books were pushed to the wayside as traveling with them was impractical and, you know, I was distracted by college life.
During and immediately after college, I read pretty sporadically as life kept getting in the way. My parents gave me a Kindle, and several years later a Kindle Paperwhite (which has a backlight, the original Kindle did not) which made reading a lot more convenient. But three years ago I started a new job and got really busy, and reading got put on the back burner yet again.
I was on a work trip last year when I “rediscovered” Goodreads, which is a social media site dedicated to books. I had originally joined when I was in college (I think I was a junior?) and used it to keep track of all the books I wanted to read and had read. I stumbled across a page for the 2018 Reading Challenge and decided I wanted to start reading again. With a hectic work travel schedule, I decided to play it safe and set my goal to 15 books for the year. To be honest, I wasn’t even sure if I would make that.
Well, I’m proud to say I smashed that record and read a whopping 41 books last year! It started off very heavy with The Rape of Nanking by Iris Chang (I had to pause for several months because the subject matter was so traumatic), and then I plunged headfirst into Regency romance novels by Georgette Heyer.
This year, I’m aiming higher for 52 books in 2019, an average of one book a week. I’m quickly running out of Georgette Heyer historical romances since I was so enthusiastic last year – I’d love some recommendations!