The 2014 Annual Reading Challenge Discussion Thread!

[Geralt]

Originally Posted by Yapyap

I guess it depends on what kind of books and how many you read, as finding that information isn't at all easy sometimes for me.

Possibly. I read mostly fantasy with occasional sci-fi and most of my ebooks are from Gollancz/Orion Publishing, HarperCollins/Harpervoyager or Random House.

Pretty straightforward really.

[Yapyap]

Originally Posted by Geralt

Possibly. I read mostly fantasy with occasional sci-fi and most of my ebooks are from Gollancz/Orion Publishing, HarperCollins/Harpervoyager or Random House.

Pretty straightforward really.

I'm still not convinced "straightforward" is a good word to use here, as it's not nearly as straightforward for all books.

Especially when there are recent books with huge discrepancies in page counts - take The Luminaries (I picked a recent, bigger book as an example as the discrepancies are most obvious with those) on Goodreads: hardback & paperback are 832-848 pages, depending on edition; Kindle editions are 832-849 pages; the first / more popular ePub edition is 788 pages (which doesn't seem to correspond to any paper edition whatsoever - I have no idea at all where it comes from, as ADE gives 753 as the page count for my edition, so it's probably not even that), another is 832 pages.

The main ePub edition (published by Hachette / Little, Brown and Company) is clearly the odd one out, and would mean a difference of 50 pages already just from one book.

There are quite a few others like that as well; more often than not, in such cases, the Kindle edition page counts do bear a relatively close relation to the paper versions, but the ebook / epub version page counts can be very off.

Yes, it's easy enough to check (and compare against other / paper versions) and if you spot something's off, to fix it or let librarians know, but I doubt everyone would go to that much effort, especially people who read 100-300 books a year. Much easier to just add the first edition that looks about right as far as format, cover and description go.

Anyway, I'm not saying it's impossible - obviously not! - but the way Goodreads catalogue works, I'm just saying that doing page-based challenges can just be, well, a bit challenging, as sometimes all the information isn't there at all and sometimes it's quite noticeably off compared to other editions, and not everyone might even have noticed that - I didn't, until just the other day, as it never really occurred to me to wonder before.

[speakingtohe]

The calibre page count plugin gives you both the ADE and the Goodreads page count for your edition if available.

Helen

[Geralt]

Yapyap, somebody obviously arbitrarily put that 788 pages, since there is no record of that number anywhere. Maybe it showed that number on their ereader . What there is a record of, is that on publisher's page both hardback and paperback (click here for details) are 848 pages. Isn't it logical that the ebook of the same editions is the same? Somebody should fix that.

I said straightforward referring to my situation so far.

[Tizzalicious]

Hurray! I just finished my first book this year!

[Nyssa]

Originally Posted by Tizzalicious

Hurray! I just finished my first book this year!

Yay! Congrats! Wishing you continued success!

[Tizzalicious]

Originally Posted by Nyssa

Yay! Congrats! Wishing you continued success!

Thank you

[Rev. Bob]

Originally Posted by Geralt

What there is a record of, is that on publisher's page both hardback and paperback (click here for details) are 848 pages. Isn't it logical that the ebook of the same editions is the same? Somebody should fix that.

All you have to do is ask...

I went with the 832 count because publishers generally count "all pages" instead of "content pages," which Goodreads calls for. (The difference is that the latter excludes copyright pages, title pages, ads at the end, and so forth.)

[bookwurm70]

Originally Posted by treadlightly

My 2014 Reading Challenge


Part C - Book Balance < $50

Reduce "Books Purchased but Unread" balance to less than $50. Current balance is $210.68. It kind of got out of hand this year with Kobopalooza.

How do you keep track of your "purchased but unread" balance? I'd like to do that.

[pdurrant]

Originally Posted by bookwurm70

How do you keep track of your "purchased but unread" balance? I'd like to do that.

Hmm… that's one metric I've never kept track of. But I do have price paid and read/unread as special columns in my calibre database, so I can probably work it out…

$1624.57. Whoops. That's about three years worth of buying. Or four years of reading.

That's why my challenge this year is to spend no more then $40/month on ebooks.

Hmm… average price of the 635 bought ebooks in my TBR is therefore $2.56 or so. My average price for books bought in 2013 was $2.48, in 2012 it was $2.27. Obviously I must have bought more expensive books in 2011 and earlier, especially as I seem to have been reading the more expensive books quicker than the cheaper ones. My average cost per bought read book in 2010-2013 was $3.05.

Stats are fun but I think the main takeaway is that I've been buying too many ebooks.

Perhaps I'll have my TBR under control (i.e. down to 50-100 books) by 2020.

[treadlightly]

Originally Posted by bookwurm70

How do you keep track of your "purchased but unread" balance? I'd like to do that.

In Calibre I have two custom columns: Read? (Y or undefined) and Cost ($). I create a Virtual Library for books where Read = undefined and then export the Virtual Library as a .csv file and add up the Cost column in a spreadsheet. I'll probably only tabulate the balance at the end of each month for simplicity. And I like the ability to sort by Cost column in Calibre to read my most expensive books first!

[Yapyap]

Woot, I have conquered my first book of 2014, and I have bought zero books so far. That means I'm on track for both the main challenge and the primary sub-challenge!

[Nyssa]

Originally Posted by Yapyap

Woot, I have conquered my first book of 2014, and I have bought zero books so far. That means I'm on track for both the main challenge and the primary sub-challenge!

Excellent Start!

[bookwurm70]

Originally Posted by treadlightly

In Calibre I have two custom columns: Read? (Y or undefined) and Cost ($). I create a Virtual Library for books where Read = undefined and then export the Virtual Library as a .csv file and add up the Cost column in a spreadsheet. I'll probably only tabulate the balance at the end of each month for simplicity. And I like the ability to sort by Cost column in Calibre to read my most expensive books first!

Thanks, I'll work on setting that up.

I'm making my official challenge 60 books.

[Katsunami]

Originally Posted by Nyssa

My goal this year is to keep reading! I'd like to read a minimum of one book a week.

It's the same with me. I can easily read a 400 page book a week (57 pages per day, or a bit more than 1,5 hours reading time), thereby reading 52 books or 20.000+ pages a year, but I often get sidetracked by other hobbies. When studying chess or go, or preparing new pieces to play on the Hammond organ, I read less; sometimes much less.

Last year I set a challenge of 18.250 pages, and almost achieved it. I only fell short by... uh... 5.500 pages or so, reading only around 12.750 pags

Therefore I've lowered my challenge to 80% of the previous one, but to force myself to read less fantasy and more other stuff (maybe a change of reading material will keep me reading more), I've set some additional challenges, such as reading 6 classics by 6 different authors.