Reading From Sections of My Shelves

In my 2025 goals post, I mentioned a thing I wanted to try, but I didn't want to make it a goal for several reasons. Firstly, I was afraid it would end up being too difficult to maintain and then I would ditch a goal. I hate that. Secondly, I wasn't even sure how to make it a goal. I hope you can see what I mean once you see what this idea is.

The concept is to spend each month focusing on books from each of the sections of my TBR shelves. I have divided my books into 11 genres. That's just how it ended up when I built them in 2020. So that means I can focus on one section each month and even have a free month.

Here are the section:

1. Jane Austen Books - This category includes all nonfiction about Jane and any fiction about Jane or retellings of her stories. Perhaps even books about Regency England as well.
2. Books About Books and Reading - These are nonfiction books about books. Reading books, writing books, publishing books, collecting books... you get the drift.
3. Nonfiction - This is all other nonfiction books. There are 3.5 shelves full of this category.
4. Contemporary Fiction - This is probably obvious, but these are books set in the past 20 years. Ish. They could be romance or literary fiction or whatever, but they are all set in recent times.
5. Classics - This category is a little ambiguous. It includes anything from The Odyssey to Brave New World. Thomas Hardy is here as well as a classic from Iran and at least one from Japan. Shirley Jackson and Flannery O'Connor live here also.
6. Historical Fiction - This is a large section. I am interested in many periods of history. These shelves contain anything written about a time before I graduated from high school. There is scholarly historical fiction a la Hilary Mantel, and trashy romance like Bridgerton and Tessa Dare. This section has managed to spread beyond the shelf and a half I had set aside for it and is taking space from the next section.
7. Book of the Month Choices - I used to be a Book of the Month member. Every month I chose from a list of books and they would show up at my house. I didn't read the books as quickly as I bought them, so they now take up 3.5 shelves of my bookcases. This category contains any and all genres. If I got a historical fiction book or a fantasy from BOTM, it is on this shelf. I just like to have them all together on the shelf.
8. Young Adult - Since I was on that Sequoyah Committee a few years ago, I still have a whole ton of YA books on my shelves. Once again, they take up about 3.5 shelves of space. Again, there are all different types of genres here including nonfiction. Weird, right? But there it is. It makes sense in my head.
9. Fantasy - I have a LOT of Fantasy. It only takes up two shelves, but both shelves are double stacked. It's a lot. Mostly because Fantasy books are regularly really long.
10. Mysteries - My mystery shelf is double stacked also. But there is only one shelf in this section. What do I do with a historical mystery, you ask? Well, it's probably going to be on the mystery shelf. Why? I don't know. It just seems correct.
11. Science Fiction - I honestly might have 3 sci-fi books. They are tucked away at the end of the Fantasy section. Why do those two things get put together all the time? The library does it. SFF is a regular notation for Science-Fiction/Fantasy, but honestly, they aren't that much alike.

So you see my struggle with setting a goal? Like, should I set a goal to read a set number of books from each shelf every month? With the way my reading numbers fluctuate month over month, that doesn't seem like an attainable goal. Since it's so nebulous, I decided to just state it as an intention. Also, I'm not really sure how to assign a section to the month. Go by mood? Draw out of a hat? I don't know. I'll let you know when I work it out.

I did assign a spread in my reading journal to this project. It's just a list of the categories with space to write in the titles of whichever books I read that month. So I will be tracking my progress in some way. If it goes well, maybe I can get an idea how to make it a specific and measurable goal for 2026.

I realize I am really obsessive with my reading projects. I like to have a path to follow and a way to make decisions. Also, I don't tend to make goals in other areas of my life. At not ones that I write down and track and make journal spreads for. Maybe if I did all those things, I would reach more goals. Huh. Gonna mull that over.

Tell me your thoughts in the comments.