New year, same old reading goals!

 It's been a while, again. I don't even know where t begin. I have a new job (in a bookshop, yay!) and am finding that whole 'work life' balance thing reeeally difficult. This is not the entire reason for me dropping off the face of this blog, but I'll do my best to pretend that it is! Yeah!

I read something like twenty books last year, and failed all my challenges. But, as they say, if at first you don't succeed...

This year I will certainly be attempting the Rose City Reader European Reading Challenge once again. I'll aim for five books and in my heart will hope for more. My countries will be:

• Finland (Stand Still Stay Silent vol. I by Minna Sundberg)
• UK (The Rental Heart and Other Fairytales by Kirsty Logan)
• Sweden (Nyckeln by Mats Strandberg and Sara Bergmark Elfgren)
• Germany (Steinernes Fleisch by Cornelia Funke)
• Hungary (Journey by Moonlight by Antal Szerb)

I've already read the book for Finland, so four to go. I can't say for definite which book I'll read for the UK and the others are, naturally, subject to change and my fickle, fickle whims. I'll link to the reviews here :)

Otherwise, I will also try once again for the Mount TBR challenge hosted at My Reader's Block. I've got a new rule this year: two out, one in. As I have more than thirty books to buy before March... I foresee myself breaking and/or bending this rule pretty quickly! I will stay humble and aim for 'Pike's Peak', listing books and linking reviews here as I post them.

• Stand Still Stay Silent vol. I by Minna Sundberg
• The Rental Heart and Other Fairytales by Kirsty Logan
• The Long Earth by Terry Pratchett and Stephen Baxter
• Don't Try this at Home by Angela Readman

Other than that, I would like to read fifty books this year (two down, forty-eight to go!). This will be a mixture of fiction and non-fiction, a mixture of English, Swedish, German, French and (dare I even hope?) Finnish. They can be teeny tiny or massive tomes - although my money is on the former. What counts is that I actually read them. Whew! Wish me luck!