The 2014 Annual Reading Challenge Discussion Thread! - Page 6

Tizzalicious · 01-01-2014, 12:11 PM

So who else started the day with lots of reading?

I had to cancel my New Years Eve plans because I was sick, so I was reading at the stroke of midnight. Then my ereader battery died, but luckily I had a "real" book to continue with.

Today was also spent reading, so I made a nice start with my challenges!

Tarana · 01-01-2014, 02:24 PM

I read for about 2 hours early this a.m. Too many interruptions now until tonight. I have stuff on the stove and in the oven and I've had bad luck forgetting about it if reading, so I surf in the kitchen while it's cooking.

Already got my first free book of the year, but I moved it directly into a new Calibre library entitled 2013 FREE. Free books are hit or miss, but I don't want to use my time on them this year. For that reason, this year, I will limit them to only scifi and established authors in my other genres. I consistently found these to be at least a 3, with a couple of 4s and a 5 last year.

sun surfer · 01-01-2014, 02:29 PM

I just updated my list post with my challenge which is similar to last years, which I really enjoyed. My challenge for the first half of 2014 is to read 4,000 pages including Foucault's Pendulum by Umberto Eco.

I still have a small stack of pbooks that I haven't read yet, mostly from years before. Ever since I began with ebooks I've been slowly making my way through the stack, but I still have around ten or so left. Most are actually non-fiction, but one is fiction - Foucault's Pendulum. I wasn't going to choose any pre-selected books for this challenge, but choosing one worked well enough for my last challenge, and noticing the one fiction book left in my pbook to-read stack, it fit together well so I went with it.

Here's to another year of reading!

treadlightly · 01-01-2014, 03:38 PM

Happy New Year to all starting their 2014 challenges today! I have to confess I started 10 minutes early last night/this morning. I'm excited for a whole year of new reads.

Rev. Bob · 01-01-2014, 03:46 PM

Quote:

Originally Posted by treadlightly

Happy New Year to all starting their 2014 challenges today! I have to confess I started 10 minutes early last night/this morning. I'm excited for a whole year of new reads.

Heh. I spent the last two hours of the year reading the last half of my then-current book. Finished it with about twenty minutes to spare.

Tarana · 01-01-2014, 04:20 PM

I've vowed to eat into my paper TBRs for the past two years

My paper TBRs are long gone. The only books I still have are craft/cooking books and 3-4 paperbacks I hope to OCR one day. This was forced on me really, since I can't read them due to vision damage. Craft and cookbooks are starting to go as well as I eliminate some hobbies and books that focus on desserts or stuff I don't do any longer such as grilling.

Tizzalicious · 01-01-2014, 04:22 PM

Quote:

Originally Posted by treadlightly

Happy New Year to all starting their 2014 challenges today! I have to confess I started 10 minutes early last night/this morning. I'm excited for a whole year of new reads.

I was well into the book I am reading, but I count when I finish them, so it's all good! I can't have War & Peace be in challenge limbo because I started it in 2013 and will finish it in 2014!

Bookpossum · 01-01-2014, 04:26 PM

Quote:

Originally Posted by issybird

I've vowed to eat into my paper TBRs for the past two years; the first year I had some success, not so much last year. I cherry-picked the lighter stuff the first year; now I've got a lot of doorstoppers and I hate to heft them.

I've always planned to reread the Music of Time sequence; perhaps we could do that in tandem? And I wanted to finish up the Sea of Fertility tetralogy with Paola and....

Where's that juggling emotie?

Fortunately, my litfic goal this year will accomodate both of these and most of the Lit Club picks. Phew!

Quote:

Originally Posted by BelleZora

I read A Question of Upbringing, the first Music of Time book in 2012. Discussion while reading the series would certainly be beneficial. I'm up for a tandem read.

That would be fun. Let's get ourselves sorted out with the other items - Sea of Fertility, my sister's books, etc - and have a go at starting them in a month or two?

The juggler was quite some way down the "More" section of emoties. Somehow it seemed appropriate!

treadlightly · 01-01-2014, 04:53 PM

Quote:

Originally Posted by Rev. Bob

Heh. I spent the last two hours of the year reading the last half of my then-current book. Finished it with about twenty minutes to spare.

Whew! That really is taking it to the wire!

speakingtohe · 01-01-2014, 05:01 PM

Quote:

Originally Posted by Geralt

Well. Here we go.
I updated my challenge list. More for that here.Some good books there, n'est–ce pas?

Indeed

Helen

SouthernSun · 01-01-2014, 05:35 PM

My goal in 2013 (documented on GoodReads only) was to read 45 books, and I only made it to 43 -- what can I say? I wish I could listen to audiobooks, I just don't have the attention span for them! My friend picked up reading (audiobooks) as a hobby halfway through the year, and he got up to 78! If only!

I don't want to set the same goal, because that'll make me feel "stagnant". I think that this year I'm going to aim for one of two things: to either read 52 books (1 book per week) or 50,000 pages (962 pages per week) -- I tend towards larger fantasy novels, so this way, if I pick up another book which clocks in above 1,000 pages (I'm looking at you, IT!), I'll still be able to easily track whether or not I'm on top of my goal!

SouthernSun · 01-01-2014, 05:47 PM

So: My friend is using GoodReads to track her reading goal (which is also 52 books!). I enjoy looking at everybody's fresh new goals at the start of the year, and when I clicked through, she's already read five! I was pretty stunned, so I went to her profile, and saw that they're all short stories, and that she's split a short story collection into the individual stories.

Now, personally, I consider short story collections to be one book, just because I don't feel that there's enough "substance" in a short story to say that I've read a book, much less five: so if I were to personally read a short story collection, it would be counted as one book, but would fulfil my page count goal as usual.

I personally think that she should be aiming higher than 52 if she's counting short stories -- the girl reads like the wind!

What about everybody else? This has made me think about how other people (who are setting goals relating to books that they've read, obviously) treat books, and what counts as one book to people. Are you counting short stories as individual books, or do you have some other criteria for them?

pdurrant · 01-01-2014, 05:50 PM

Quote:

Originally Posted by SouthernSun

Are you counting short stories as individual books, or do you have some other criteria for them?

If I have bought a short story individually, I'll count it as a book. This really only applies to old Fictionwise purchases now.

If I've bought something in omnibus form, I'll also usually count each omnibus as one book.

But a set of stories collected in one book/magazine? That's just one book for me.

It all tends to even out in the end.

DrNefario · 01-01-2014, 06:05 PM

Similar here. If something shows up as a separate item in my TBR, then I count it, because my challenge is partly TBR based. This will include probably around 20 shorter works in a year because I tend to vote in the Hugos, which means reading the shortlists for the three short fiction categories. There will usually also be short stories for the Campbell new writer award.

In 2012 my challenge was for books, and I didn't count anything shorter than a book.

I don't split collections, but I do split omnibuses because that's how I read them.

treadlightly · 01-01-2014, 06:06 PM

If I have bought a novella as one ebook, I count it as one book.

If I have bought several short stories in one anthology, I count it as one book.

If I have bought an omnibus that is also available as separate ebooks, I count each book individually.

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01-01-2014, 12:11 PM	#76
Tizzalicious Connoisseur Posts: 91 Karma: 956996 Join Date: Jul 2013 Location: Netherlands Device: Kobo Aura, Kindle Paperwhite, Kobo Glo, iPad 2, iPhone 5	So who else started the day with lots of reading? I had to cancel my New Years Eve plans because I was sick, so I was reading at the stroke of midnight. Then my ereader battery died, but luckily I had a "real" book to continue with. Today was also spent reading, so I made a nice start with my challenges!

01-01-2014, 02:24 PM	#77
Tarana Wizard Posts: 3,982 Karma: 38840460 Join Date: Sep 2012 Location: Minneapolis Device: PWSE, Voyage, K3, HDX, KBasic 7 & 8, Nook Glo3, Echos, Nanos	I read for about 2 hours early this a.m. Too many interruptions now until tonight. I have stuff on the stove and in the oven and I've had bad luck forgetting about it if reading, so I surf in the kitchen while it's cooking. Already got my first free book of the year, but I moved it directly into a new Calibre library entitled 2013 FREE. Free books are hit or miss, but I don't want to use my time on them this year. For that reason, this year, I will limit them to only scifi and established authors in my other genres. I consistently found these to be at least a 3, with a couple of 4s and a 5 last year.

01-01-2014, 02:29 PM	#78
sun surfer languorous autodidact ✦ Posts: 4,235 Karma: 44637926 Join Date: Jun 2010 Location: smiling with the rising sun Device: onyx boox poke 2 colour, kindle voyage	I just updated my list post with my challenge which is similar to last years, which I really enjoyed. My challenge for the first half of 2014 is to read 4,000 pages including Foucault's Pendulum by Umberto Eco. I still have a small stack of pbooks that I haven't read yet, mostly from years before. Ever since I began with ebooks I've been slowly making my way through the stack, but I still have around ten or so left. Most are actually non-fiction, but one is fiction - Foucault's Pendulum. I wasn't going to choose any pre-selected books for this challenge, but choosing one worked well enough for my last challenge, and noticing the one fiction book left in my pbook to-read stack, it fit together well so I went with it. Here's to another year of reading!

01-01-2014, 03:38 PM	#79
treadlightly Wizard Posts: 1,370 Karma: 6957792 Join Date: Nov 2010 Location: Ottawa, ON Device: Kobo H2O	Happy New Year to all starting their 2014 challenges today! I have to confess I started 10 minutes early last night/this morning. I'm excited for a whole year of new reads.

01-01-2014, 04:20 PM	#81
Tarana Wizard Posts: 3,982 Karma: 38840460 Join Date: Sep 2012 Location: Minneapolis Device: PWSE, Voyage, K3, HDX, KBasic 7 & 8, Nook Glo3, Echos, Nanos	I've vowed to eat into my paper TBRs for the past two years My paper TBRs are long gone. The only books I still have are craft/cooking books and 3-4 paperbacks I hope to OCR one day. This was forced on me really, since I can't read them due to vision damage. Craft and cookbooks are starting to go as well as I eliminate some hobbies and books that focus on desserts or stuff I don't do any longer such as grilling.

01-01-2014, 05:35 PM	#86
SouthernSun Connoisseur Posts: 59 Karma: 166452 Join Date: Jul 2013 Location: Australia Device: Kindle Keyboard	My goal in 2013 (documented on GoodReads only) was to read 45 books, and I only made it to 43 -- what can I say? I wish I could listen to audiobooks, I just don't have the attention span for them! My friend picked up reading (audiobooks) as a hobby halfway through the year, and he got up to 78! If only! I don't want to set the same goal, because that'll make me feel "stagnant". I think that this year I'm going to aim for one of two things: to either read 52 books (1 book per week) or 50,000 pages (962 pages per week) -- I tend towards larger fantasy novels, so this way, if I pick up another book which clocks in above 1,000 pages (I'm looking at you, IT!), I'll still be able to easily track whether or not I'm on top of my goal!

01-01-2014, 05:47 PM	#87
SouthernSun Connoisseur Posts: 59 Karma: 166452 Join Date: Jul 2013 Location: Australia Device: Kindle Keyboard	So: My friend is using GoodReads to track her reading goal (which is also 52 books!). I enjoy looking at everybody's fresh new goals at the start of the year, and when I clicked through, she's already read five! I was pretty stunned, so I went to her profile, and saw that they're all short stories, and that she's split a short story collection into the individual stories. Now, personally, I consider short story collections to be one book, just because I don't feel that there's enough "substance" in a short story to say that I've read a book, much less five: so if I were to personally read a short story collection, it would be counted as one book, but would fulfil my page count goal as usual. I personally think that she should be aiming higher than 52 if she's counting short stories -- the girl reads like the wind! What about everybody else? This has made me think about how other people (who are setting goals relating to books that they've read, obviously) treat books, and what counts as one book to people. Are you counting short stories as individual books, or do you have some other criteria for them?

01-01-2014, 06:05 PM	#89
DrNefario Wizard Posts: 2,100 Karma: 11315768 Join Date: Jan 2012 Location: UK Device: Kindle, Kobo Touch, Nook SimpleTouch	Similar here. If something shows up as a separate item in my TBR, then I count it, because my challenge is partly TBR based. This will include probably around 20 shorter works in a year because I tend to vote in the Hugos, which means reading the shortlists for the three short fiction categories. There will usually also be short stories for the Campbell new writer award. In 2012 my challenge was for books, and I didn't count anything shorter than a book. I don't split collections, but I do split omnibuses because that's how I read them.

01-01-2014, 06:06 PM	#90
treadlightly Wizard Posts: 1,370 Karma: 6957792 Join Date: Nov 2010 Location: Ottawa, ON Device: Kobo H2O	If I have bought a novella as one ebook, I count it as one book. If I have bought several short stories in one anthology, I count it as one book. If I have bought an omnibus that is also available as separate ebooks, I count each book individually.

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