The 2012 Annual Reading Challenge - Discussion Thread!

[DrNefario]

I am at 19 of 50 books by the end of April, which is ahead of schedule. I'm also around half way through three of my backburner books, so I should be okay, even if I slow down a bit.

I also have targets for movies, graphic novels and videogames, and I'm behind in all of those. (I'm not counting graphic novels with the other books, or I could add another two. The point of having a separate target was to try to encourage myself to read more of them. It isn't really working, yet.)

[MrsJoseph]

I think I will make it. I'm doing good and have plenty to read.

[jbcohen]

50 books for the year means 50/12 = 4.166 per month and 4.166*4 for April the fourth month equals 16.664. Since you have read 19 you are approximatly three books ahead of where you need to be so keep up the good work. Myself I am trailing where I need to be at this point in the year by approximatly three books pretty much consistently. However, I have convereted to counting pages which is probably more fare since I have been reading some real door stopper books, which slow down the book count but will not slow down the page count. As far as page counts go I am doing quite well there. 14000/12 months in the year is 1166.666 per month and since we just finished the fourth month thats 1166.666*4= 4666.664 and 7900-4667 = 3233, meaning that I am actually three thousand pages further than I need to be.

[DrNefario]

I have progress bars on my blog (which maybe I'll add to my sig, one day), including one which counts the days, so I can easily see if I'm ahead or behind. The bars themselves are CSS (with javascript for the dates), so wouldn't work here.

At the moment, I'm also trying to read a couple of unpublished manuscripts - one of them by me - which I guess I shouldn't count.

[jbcohen]

Depends on your definition of a book. Mirriam and Webster defines a book as a - set of written, printed, or blank sheets bound together into a volume. There is nothing in the definition that says anything about who wrote the set of sheets bound together in the volume.

As an undergrad student I took a class in the retoric of argument where we learned how to make arguments and one of the pricinpals that we were taught is to argue from definition, becuase arguments exist in the balance between facts. Mirriam and Webster is generally excepted as the arbitur of definitions, in other words what the dictionary says a word means is what it means and we argue based on that.

The key to this definition is the binding. Is the manuscript that you wrote defario bound together in some maner? Such as with a staple or perhaps a binder clip or paper clip. If it is it qualifies as bound and therefore satisfies the condition for being a book.

I have converted from counting books to counting pages as a way to compensate for the fact that I tend to read really long books which would keep me from meeting my number of books goals to one based on the number of pages per year. I think that 14,000 while it may seem like a lot is a doable goal since 14,000/12 = 1,166 per month * 4 = 4,666.667 and 14,000 - 4,666.667 = 9,333.333 meaning I am more than nine thousand pages over the mark where I need to be at thsi time of the year.

[Kaylee Skylyn]

New here, just let me preface with that. :P

I have not set a goal yet but the idea is starting to appeal to me...somewhat. I have no idea how much I read per year and would be interested to know.

A few questions though.

1) I am glad to see some people count pages rather than books. But I was wondering if that is even accurate enough?

Doesn't the amount of text per page differ between the books layout, size, font ect? Why can't books list a word count? That way be easily comparable, but I don't think I've ever seen a book described as X words....I did see a post elsewhere in the forums about a standard "page" in a eBook being X number of words but when reading a traditional paperback how do you estimate how many words a book is?

2) Do the reading lists have to be "officially" published books?

I've realised that most of my reading the last few years have been independents (and of that most is *gasp!* fanfiction. And most fanfiction is rated in words...thus the first question :P But I KNOW that many are far longer than traditional paperbacks. *opens one at random* 182 pages in MS Word and 76000 words long...although thinking about it about half that number of words is more 'average'....) I'm starting to get back into traditional paperbacks too, just to even things out but still...fanfic is a big part of my reading indulgence.

I also just joined GoodReads so may use that to track my progress.

Also must say; since discovering digital books I've really started to "hoard" them...downloading freebees is a new addiction and I'm not sure how to prioritize my reading (I download stuff I have SOME interest in but certainly not everything I download would be read if it wasn't free...heck I may not have even grabbed it from the library...) I like the GoodReads "To Read" list but wish they had a handy way to prioritize and categorize my "To Reads".

But I'm starting to ramble....
Edited for grammar...I suck. "number of text per page"? Amount...not number, was switching thought. Started to say "Number of words" per page.

[ATDrake]

Originally Posted by Kaylee Skylyn

2) Do the reading lists have to be "officially" published books?

Not at all. It's set your own challenge, so if you decide that you want to read 1 new fanfiction author per week, or 50 recommended stories you've never tried before, or 12 books you got for free, it's entirely up to you what you want to challenge yourself to do and how you want to count it.

The important thing is to enjoy yourself, and hopefully feel a sense of accomplishment if you manage to make whatever goals you set.

[Dazrin]

Originally Posted by Kaylee Skylyn

New here, just let me preface with that. :P

Welcome!

A few questions though.

1) I am glad to see some people count pages rather than books. But I was wondering if that is even accurate enough?

Doesn't the amount of text per page differ between the books layout, size, font ect? Why can't books list a word count? That way be easily comparable, but I don't think I've ever seen a book described as X words....I did see a post elsewhere in the forums about a standard "page" in a eBook being X number of words but when reading a traditional paperback how do you estimate how many words a book is?

I have been accused of being very "scientific" about page numbers (I am not quite sure how to take that. ), so here are my thoughts on this. Don't worry about it, as long as you choose something somewhat consistent it will all work out in the end. I try to find the mass market paperback page counts for any particular book because I know at least the page size is approximately the same and the font sizes are going to be at least somewhat close. If you read mostly ebooks you can also use the Calibre plugin to find the equivalent page counts (or word counts) too.

2) Do the reading lists have to be "officially" published books?

ATDrake covered this nicely. This is more about creating and meeting a personal goal than racing with each other.

I also just joined GoodReads so may use that to track my progress.

Also must say; since discovering digital books I've really started to "hoard" them...downloading freebees is a new addiction and I'm not sure how to prioritize my reading (I download stuff I have SOME interest in but certainly not everything I download would be read if it wasn't free...heck I may not have even grabbed it from the library...) I like the GoodReads "To Read" list but wish they had a handy way to prioritize and categorize my "To Reads".

I had some of the same issue when I started getting into e-books, so I made a spreadsheet to track my TBR list and books/pages I have read. You can click my signature which will take you to my yearly challenge to see more, the links to the spreadsheet are in the spoiler at the bottom.
(I hope this doesn't fall into self-promotion.)

[MrsJoseph]

Originally Posted by Kaylee Skylyn

New here, just let me preface with that. :P

I have not set a goal yet but the idea is starting to appeal to me...somewhat. I have no idea how much I read per year and would be interested to know.

A few questions though.

1) I am glad to see some people count pages rather than books. But I was wondering if that is even accurate enough?

Doesn't the amount of text per page differ between the books layout, size, font ect? Why can't books list a word count? That way be easily comparable, but I don't think I've ever seen a book described as X words....I did see a post elsewhere in the forums about a standard "page" in a eBook being X number of words but when reading a traditional paperback how do you estimate how many words a book is?

2) Do the reading lists have to be "officially" published books?

I've realised that most of my reading the last few years have been independents (and of that most is *gasp!* fanfiction. And most fanfiction is rated in words...thus the first question :P But I KNOW that many are far longer than traditional paperbacks. *opens one at random* 182 pages in MS Word and 76000 words long...although thinking about it about half that number of words is more 'average'....) I'm starting to get back into traditional paperbacks too, just to even things out but still...fanfic is a big part of my reading indulgence.

I also just joined GoodReads so may use that to track my progress.

Also must say; since discovering digital books I've really started to "hoard" them...downloading freebees is a new addiction and I'm not sure how to prioritize my reading (I download stuff I have SOME interest in but certainly not everything I download would be read if it wasn't free...heck I may not have even grabbed it from the library...) I like the GoodReads "To Read" list but wish they had a handy way to prioritize and categorize my "To Reads".

But I'm starting to ramble....
Edited for grammar...I suck. "number of text per page"? Amount...not number, was switching thought. Started to say "Number of words" per page.

You've been given great answers so far! The only thing I can add is to check out the MobileRead Challenge Group over at Goodreads. We all have different individual and group challenges - and they are all very cool. Some of us are even doing more than one challenge. So come check us out, you might like it.

[Kaylee Skylyn]

Thanks for the responses so far! Much appreciated!
And good answers.

I think I'll use the pages standard, keep the number of books as a side note, and just use the Calibre calculations to help with the fanfic ones (after all I've developed a habit of ePub-ing my favs for myself anyways...)

*moseys on over to the MobileReads group*

I was hoping there was a bit more of a lazy person friendly way to track a to read list than a spreadsheet (What? Can't developers read my mind and make it for me before I even express an interest in it?) ...I find I just get tired of maintaining a spreadsheet - like I said; lazy - and it eventually falls by the wayside.

Also I must say I've enjoyed browsing others reading lists. Found some interesting new books to add to my "To Read list".

[HomeInMyShoes]

^No one is going to do the typing for you into the spreadsheet. The mind reading interface is definitely interesting but probably at least a couple of decades away.

There are those of us that have been accused of spending too much time in our statistics than is healthy for reading progress, but I'd never fall into that category. No, no, that wouldn't be me.

Welcome to the forum and happy reading. I, myself have three challenges: Read 50 books and yes pages and words per page vary a lot; read a book by an author whose last name begins with every letter of the alphabet (only 3 left to go); read a book first published in every decade since 1900 plus one pre-1900 choice (only 1 left to go).

[jbcohen]

I would like to address Skylyn's second point about published novels. The only implied guidance here has been that are goals are books rather than magazines and according to what I learned in the retoric of argument class as an undergrad student all arguments should be made from definition and Mirriam and Webster is the arbitur of definitions. According to Mirrriam and Webster a book is: a set of written sheets of skin or paper or tablets of wood or ivory. This defintion never once mentions anything about publication so as long as the book that you have in mind meets two requirements: a) its written on either paper or skin; and 2) is bound together in some manner its a book and is therefore valid for this challenge. If for some reason the book comes appart and is sperated from its bindings in some way it is no longer a book but instead is a group of paper sheets. I have said this before to another forum member who asked if the book could be his own manuscript and according to the definition that Mirriam and Webster gave above yes that is allowed as well.

Personally I am not that scientific about the page numbers I have noticed that each time the percentage on the kindle goes up the number of pages, per my caluclations tends to go up as well by ten percent. Thus one percent tends to be approximatly ten pages, which varries by the book. Using this method I am endevoring to keep my ticker up todate on my progress, which I am proud to say is considerably ahead of where I need to be at this time of the year. Since I tend to read a lot of very big books my book count is laging, however in page count I am doing very well.

I have completed March to the Coast and instead of diving streight into volume three I was taken a side track to Eric Flint's the Baltic War which is slow going but seems to be holding my interest a good deal of the time. I still have the reaminder of the empire of man and the remainder of the polseen war to read through. So I have no shortage of things to hold me at the current junction.

Completed Baltic War yesturday and I am going through the third of the Empire of Man series, March to the Stars. I seem to be able to go through 2% of the book on my commute to the office and another 2% on the way home, so my progress will depend on how much I can get through on my lunch break and through out the day. March to the Stars is starting out real well. At the moment I am approximatly 10% into the book and it seems that the Marines have just gotten within site of land. I am anticpating the fight for a ship to take them home towards the end of the book. However for now I am going through a bit of diversions in the novel. It seems that they have been discussing religious bigotry of the past, our current time period. I will probably read the last of the series, We few directly after going through this book. I would imagine that that would probably be next month before I get to it as I have a Deathland and an Outlands books to read through this month, will have more next month as well.

I have been making a lot of headway in the current book - March to the Stars, as well as the Outland's book that I picked up in printed form, I have this real bias towards electronic books so much to my own disappointment none of the outlands books are available in electronic form as yet or via the Harlaquin/Golden Eagle/Worldwide Library readers service. I kind of wish they were available via the readers service. I am a bit over 25% read in that book.

[DrNefario]

I would consider fanfic to be about as published as indie ebooks. It's finished, and available on the web for anyone. It's up to you whether you feel it qualifies as a book by length, or whether you want to start counting fractions of books (3 novellas = 1 book, for instance (I just made that up for the purposes of illustration)). I will be reading all the Hugo nominees, myself, and will probably leave the shorter works out of my calculations.

My particular challenge is supposed to be books that are new to me, so I can't count my own unpublished manuscript (although I wrote it five years ago, and haven't read it since then).

With my friend's manuscript - if I manage to get to it - I am not happy to count it because it is unverifiable. I can't say anything about it on my blog. I don't have a cover image or a final title. It might not be very close to its final form. So I don't think I'm likely to count it. Not unless I finish up on 49/50 at the end of December.

[HomeInMyShoes]

Book number 31 complete and I completed one of my two main challenges for this year. I've now read a book from every decade since 1900 and a 19th Century selection.

[orlok]

Originally Posted by HomeInMyShoes

Book number 31 complete and I completed one of my two main challenges for this year. I've now read a book from every decade since 1900 and a 19th Century selection.

Nice one . And was it a worthwhile challenge?